Heading east of the full moon
the moon we prayed to that dawn would come
& dawn's fuse igniting across blue-steel cumulus, & higher still
a war jet's thin glint, its contrail connecting coasts
& the moon, a watermark fainter now,
in the Syrian camps the stink of babies three days dead
& the boy staring back at the camera, his belly
swollen like a poisoned pup
& in Aleppo, & in Gaza, the thrump-thrump of Apache rotors
each blade tip a dust devil vortex
& dollars, & black market Semtex, & the sex-slave crèche
in Brooklyn, the AmEx card, its golden encompassing fire
& the Sea of Tranquillity, its ghost vehicles, ghost footprints
remainders of bardic technology, out of mind
& we at war's end, & where the war begins, in our faces
the fired hydrogen winds, our skulls alight with our shame
Heading east of the full moon
the moon we prayed to that dawn would come
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