Night View

bright in black the blue flashers surround a building
where cop lights frame another shooting at a downtown bar

the news will say violence so like violence has always been
but with more cameras

as I watch from safety of my mountain
I think I know these men:

the vicious with powder burns on his fingers &
the victim face-shot dumbstruck dying on his back on a dirty floor

ten thousand years of their DNA I keep inside me
did I mention the clear night? that I might see forever looking up?

down has its urgency like a hand held out to shake
I observe until the thin-stretched bones of this city break

  

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Ace Boggess is author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His poems have appeared in Harvard Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Rattle, River Styx, Atlanta Review, and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.