When

When the boy with the gun.

When the man with the rifle
that he fires through a door.

When the men with the guns
in the flatbed truck.

When parade is prelude.
Is litany of the newly dead. 

Is it that we ask too much
or expect too little?

For a body that simply runs.

Toward nothing
and toward everything.

For the cost of a happiness
not linked to a wound.

When the flood and the breath
of yearned-for light.