A is flying home tomorrow and B is helping him pack.
C doesn’t know why the moon is orange tonight
or where all the rivers went.
D is lacing up his boots—flight always wins out over fight.
E was pregnant last week
and F is crying and asking if you’d like fries
with that, wouldn’t know radioactive if his eyelashes fell off.
We’re all fighting the same war
over a telegram that got lost at sea.
You grow up and forget, but when you’re sixteen
you know that the whole world is just the reflection
of a mirror in another mirror
on the opposite side of the room.
G wants you to know that she’s here for you,
that she won’t let you down, not even if you ask her to.
H is a pacifist. What reason has he to fight?
H is hoarding every radio he can find.
At night he toils over broken parts
and antennae, turns knobs/twists screws, rakes
the static for a tune—breaks only to catch
his breath and rasp into his own microphone, are you there?
Are you there? Are you there?