I have to live here
and I want to cry
when I see what they have done;
what's happened to my beautiful
fragile green city—
our perennial problems
swept away by this
invasion
of the peaceful and the violent
of the powerful and powerless
the cops who are on their 16th hour
and can't tell a protester
from a passerby.
(who shoot the retreating)
ah, I breathe.
we—us and the city—are a container.
we are large enough to compass this.
and to breathe out, and blow
these crowds, this anger,
back to wherever it belongs.
we are taking in a breath.
preparing for a sigh of relief.
—12/3/99