Who were last month our neighbors,
our friends, the man who returned the extra onion
we sold him by mistake. We are not
made of lead, but run slower than their bullets.
Our children, depending on their fright,
run either fastest or not at all.
We step across the other dead like cobblestones,
or across the half-dead, or the ones who sigh for help.
We gathered our belongings seconds before
the mob solved our locked doors.
We meant to bring the jars of pickled squash,
reached for the bicycle grease instead.
Now we flee the old woman we used to help
to cross the street, who it turns out
can hit a sparrow in a juniper bush
at a hundred paces with her rifle.
The doctor who purged our homes of disease
doesn’t pause to clean his bayonet.
The woods are near, where we must hope
the wolves will move over to welcome us.
