It’s the dead of winter,
4:00 AM.
As I lay in my bed,
My blankets are a cocoon.
A piercing scream closes in.
It is joined by the downbeat sound
Of thundering engines.
Dogs howl in the chorus.
Somewhere a man lays spewing life.
The cause is on the run,
Being investigated,
To someday remain unknown.
In any case,
death breathed life into the sirens.
In another place, a lifetime is ablaze.
A family is at odds with their damnable luck.
Their accumulations are now only fuel
For the sirens.
This is the city.
A place where there are a million ways to die,
With only a few ways to live.
A place that breeds anonymity.
Only the sirens know everyone.
The sirens come for us all.