ten thirty in the morning and a block from my home, a passing car fired shots into a residence, killing one. we are divided by strange geography. where just a mile away, elaborate storytellers discuss the infinite worth of human life. life, above everything. sacred. sanctity of flesh. the sanctity of an already rotting thing. they talk about the only one they've known, a right. at home, life is a privilege. it is a very fine gift, it is soft light and spun gold to wake up on a mattress or under an overpass. where the housemates are hoarders or junkies, where the neighbor kids know that when bullets trace mimetic pattens below the thousands of planes crossing the sky that they should drop their balls and bikes and duck inside. here it is a privilege to vend old papers on the corner, to sit for awhile under an awning with the sill steaming cup. to slip onto bart and emerge on the esplanade of the embarcadero and stare at the bay, stare back at the place from where you've come. cranes grovel under the heavens. they load waiting barges with obedience and the grinding sound of metal on metal.

funny constructions, the scenery we set up to distract ourselves from our paws and sharp teeth. the scene in which this house blows down. the stony smile of the newscaster, her fresh suit. she is talking about politics. we invent the board and tell different pieces how to move. we invent interests. we trace lines in the sand and we build up our armies and we share our blood. we pour out life. we pour and pour and pour out life and we do not stop pouring ourselves out until we forget. disassociate. we invent new power to distract ourselves from the things we will never control. we build scaffolding and we build easily deconstructed facades to shield us, to keep shielding us. we upturn the tea in the harbor and we nail the loudest ones to the cross. pour out. recite the lines. improve the blocking.

this man, he wasn't sharp enough for all the pricking around i had my heart set on doing. not a quick enough talker for me to forget the clawing death that waits under the horizon.