Another ****** died today,
his blood steaming, cooling, in
Pittsburgh's winter streets.
The pale, blue, afternoon sky,
moving too soon into night,
settled darkness on the day,
and on the junkies life.
This all-too-common narrative,
the background noise of our lives,
fails to stir our outrage.
Crawling on top of the man,
as he gasps his last,
his seven-year old son.
They die together, son cradled
in father's embrace.
Both riddled with bullets.
And still, the community fails
to find the outrage.
A black man's death means
nothing to a society conditioned
to judge his worth by his vice.
The death of his son means
even less.

My green-eyed first wife -
fiery temper and hair to match -
slid the wedding ring on my
finger.

Twisting on my knuckle, it
never left my hand.  I grokked
with certainty borne from intuition
that BAD THINGS would happen
should that tri-colored gold band
leave my touch.

Years, a decade and change, passed
and one day I took it off and set it
on the bed beside me.
For two seconds I was fine, but then
I couldn’t breathe.
In a panic, I put the ring back on.

But

I put it on backwards.

BAD THINGS happened.

Weeks later, soul-weary and
tired of constant fighting
I remembered my
misstep and I
flipped the ring on my finger.

Things got better.  But now I knew.  
Like peeling blistered skin after a sunburn,
I couldn’t stop.

Flip. Fight. Flip. Make up.
Flip. Scream. Flip. Sweet nothings.
Flip. Slammed doors. Flip. Makeup ***.

I forgot which direction was safe and
which was dangerous.

That marriage - that ring - is gone now.
I’m married to a blonde angel now
with a temper as cool as her hair; who
loves me more than I deserve
and knows me better than I’d like.

From day one, I refused to let the
flip
of the ring mar my new marriage.  

I flipped it on my wedding night.
I flipped it the next day on my honeymoon.
I flip that ring every day,
daring
it to curse me again.

Another decade has passed,
I flip my new ring daily.

And cringe a little each time.

The Penguins are playing tonight
I have a belly full of high-quality
whiskey,
a fine cigar between my fingers,
and a pleasant buzz dulling my
constant anxiety.
The announcers play-by-play,
constant and frantic,
blares through my 70-inch television
adding artificial drama, but I like it.
I'm surrounded by my
precarious middle class wealth
while thousands of
slaves suffer and die in Lybia.
But I’m drunk, oblivious, and happy that
my team
just scored

his hipster beard -
mandatory accessory for this
gentrified borough of Pittsburgh -
leads him back and forth
from the kitchen to the tables

he serves more tables than he should
I wait too long for my
overpriced salad
as he drops a plate of greasy wings
in front of a table of oblivious
professionals who
judge him
find him wanting
without ever looking up from their phones

a small bead of sweat accompanies him
when he drops off my check

I pay with a twenty and he brings me back
a ragged five and a one-dollar bill.

I know what he did.  ****.

god ****** hipster server trying to fleece me
playing on social pressure
betting on pocketing that faded fiver
that he did not earn from me

I force him to break that Lincoln
I tip three bucks
because I ****** well won’t let him get the best of me

my indignation is an all-American righteousness
so much so that I forget -

forget I paid four times what the salad was worth
forget he doesn’t see a penny of that profit
forget that he makes less than three bucks an hour
forget that without tips he won’t make rent

I forget all of this in my pride at catching a huckster
who just wants to keep the lights on
one more day

I walked out of my office today at noon
and slid into the stream of pedestrians -
the hipsters stroking their beards,
the pale professionals blinking in the sun,
mothers pushing strollers through the crowd
with more skill than a racecar driver

before I knew it, I walked past my lunch destination
I kept walking - and watching
the people of my town share a sidewalk
without attacking one another

for a moment I was tempted to take a picture
post it on online,
make a socio-political statement;
if people from all walks of life
can share the sidewalk
can we not find common ground?

I left my phone in my pocket - decided against
adding my unnecessary opinion to the
manufactured outrage
that is the sad truth of social media

I smiled at a pretty lady pushing her baby
she smiled back
and we shared a brief human moment
I kept walking

there he is
a monster with a *****
but that’s redundant

all monsters have a *****
all penises are attached to monsters
right?

so  there he is
a monster at fifteen

a predator
walled away - kept from
the good people of the world
by police, bars, most importantly
social shaming

we have no room for monsters now
zero tolerance
and punishment is more
satisfying
than education

making examples of a monster
is the best way to cow all monsters
right?

and this monster,  he will serve nicely
a warning -
marked, shunned, condemned -
on display to all other
monsters
who would
snap a girl’s bra strap

"you are
so beautiful,"
I said, and then wept when
the uncertainty flickered in
her eyes