Untitled -18

five months into a war
has anyone changed —
their mind
their convictions
their matrix of
grief and outrage
their boundary —
except for the few
that depend on what
strangers think they give
freely: likes, applause, power?

we are screaming in
echo chambers
or saying nothing at all
or worse
speaking inanities
in carefully curated spaces
distant from war, distanced from war

meanwhile a child looks
skyward, most times in
fear, sometimes in hope —
there is a calculus somewhere
that thinks one cancels out
the other. It is the absurdity
of the English language
where gravity has two
meanings. One
that suggest that the
falling in itself may be of
grave concern. Grave.
Concern.

The other that insists
that what is falling must
fall. That, once set in
motion, there is
no other way.