On the Eve of the Next War

Hear that? you ask.
Both of us look,
but only you see
the fuzzy gray silhouette
of a bombed building.

Nothing matters
and nothing connects.

The torn gum wrappers
are one small hint.

Elderly tourists
covered in cameras
are another.

It isn’t until later,
while I’m still shaking my head
at your question,
that the sky bangs shut.

I used to love the dark
or just after,
when there’s no longer
a near and a far
and what may really only
be planets look like stars.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Middle of Nowhere (Olivia Eden Publishing) and the forthcoming poetry chapbooks The Complete Absence of Twilight (Mad Hat Press), Echo’s Bones and Danger Falling Debris (Red Bird Chapbooks), and An Armed Man Lurks in Ambush (unbound CONTENT). He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.