Caulk like chalk lines
Drawn on a brick wall
draws blocks together
like ionized particles;
and so the dust whips
up from the pavement,
onto the flat mast
of a tricolored flag
which rests in public space–
but not without movement,
but not without tension–
would fall without knots.

And so our good people,
held by conviction
prescribed by no doctor
swallow a large dose.
Fellow faces they crumple, yet
it’s poor taste to mention that,
and so the tongue is tied;
we speak not.


White cloth like chalk lines,
Red strips like bricks fall
Three-fourths down a half mast;
good people feel sad.
Hands over mouths breathe
through cracks in the radio feed,
like freckles on a sunburn bleed
when cancer starts to spread.
Good people see the bad
and so white faces turn red,
the tragic intrudes on public space
and yields nothing said;


With chalk drawn in broad lines
Knots in arteries tie,
And so I share in death
with all passers-by.

Chalk traces human shapes
—hollow forms on the street—

a dream in waking,
immutable quaking,
beneath a a flag where all colors meet.