One morning as tear gas ghosts waft from sobbing streets,

A little boy huddles inside a car.

The left door is missing.  The boy remembers

Metal shrieking the previous night, and

Flares and flashlight beams striking

As carelessly as any fist.

This overturned bulk had made like refuge

After warm arms grew limp

And cold.  But now the sun is white-gold

And clouds shaped like dinosaurs roam

Above, though one of the boy’s eyes

Is swollen shut, the other’s vision

Of heaven blurred by tears.  It is enough.

Eyelids close, shoulders hunching as arms scrawny

And made fun of in school hug knees to chest.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young man shall utterly fall

Isaiah 40:30