When the War Started

You struck the dog with your palm

Poured rosewater on the asphalt

Tore your polo to baby blue ribbons

Ate, howling, all the food in your home

Read the birdsigns of the reaper drones

Graphed out the red sky with your wand

Watched the friend you love turn to clay

Gathered your hair in bundling cloth, then

Bashed off that tight knot on the mantel.

That faraway old world’s been lodged

in your head ever since.