i.
part of my school curriculum
included:
to assemble a kalashnikov
in less than three minutes
then aim.
before we had even learned to
get along with each other.
we were never too young
for military education.
ii.
if they asked me, I would say:
give me words to assemble
to fire.
I can program words.
their knobs much more sensitive
to where they stand
what comes after
their small brilliant explosions.
iii.
the clock shows the same time today
despite yesterday's shredded sky
witness to the mirror cracking
to bowls blazed by the fire
that made them
the hesitation of wounds
wiping out the what-came-before.
this memory.
at noon today
the heat is less intense. quiet
the world changed.
iv.
I get up different every morning.
layers of difference so thin
mostly unnoticed.
today my face not quite in focus
reflects in another's eyes
even I notice it—
a double glazed window
the two images not quite together
not separate enough.
v.
The bomb did not explode
where it was supposed to
as if "supposed to" is
a Given—
that makes all the difference
in the Taking.