disaster # 4673

Ceilings and walls of tenuous sleep
Blankets are a thin
Membrane
Against the noise
And the chaos
And the cold

Yesterday, sunlight and commercial
Music at the mall, where
Those of disposable means are
Casually tossing coins,
To the metallic yap of a
Plastic toy dog

I see them,
Groomed and adorned,
Having learned and strove
Through the capitalist systemic
Calculus
Of have and wont and woe,
I admire them
That perseverance,
That sharp toothed priority
Of self and those whose well being
Depends upon it

About a week ago, Ian's exhausted wrath
Drunkenly battered our thin, tin walls
As we huddled beneath that familiar
Seasonal monstrosity

And somehow the tarp held, and the roof
Damaged and leaking, held
And, for now, our life holds,
A bioluminescent cell,
Trembling in the grips of forces
That demand with paper, that withdraw or
Deny based upon a transference of numerical
Values,
And lives and meals and dreams
And fears and the steady rotation
Of the galaxy, creeps forward from
Crucifixions to Waterloo
And from here and on

Sleep shorn away by a deaf neighbors
Relentless bass, hours stretched
Upon a rack, each day, jotting down
Numbers, receiving and filing forms,
Google autofill addresses that assert
We are here, and join a quiet
Queue, for aid

And there's no silence, in these moments
As family unable to help, their own homes
Full of more immediate members,
Bills threatening the brim of their
Cups, and so
Texts dry up, or
Avoid the critical mass
We have become

And it's hard to embrace the wry humor of how
It seems like everything was alright, not too long
Ago, but time and events are always
Building, toward these moments of
Painful transformations

It's unseasonably cold
In the wake,
I prepare to rehome my cat, later this
Month, somewhere safe,
But for now, I buy a thin blanket
And huddle beneath in the dark
Listening to the endless sounds


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