Checkpoint

 

You peer past blinds, transfixed before
the TV’s bright flicker in the silent dark—
a beauty goes under the surgeon’s blade, a love affair
ends, a brown eyed collie paddles wild waters to home,
everything concludes for better or worse. How you fear
that nothing resolves into sweet pathos, plenitude.
Ask yourself, who pities the world? If you could pierce
candescent skin, your mind a knife, what would the slow
blossom of truth, of blood, prevent or make? Dread
extinguished does not counterweight your grief
for babies shot at the checkpoint while father crosses
for work and bread. Find the worm inside an orchid
that glows, wander small town sidewalks,
locate illusion, hallowed and brief.