"Zap, zap," some ray-guns say to rag-color pigeons
        pecking cement, now dishwater-color smoke and ash.

        "Yardbird, yardbird," a short man shouts, with too many clothes on,
        slopping vodka, daylight, down his robot throat-hole.

        God bless cars with red cellophane tape over brake lights,
        padlocks for trunk locks, different color doors, lumber for bumpers,

        windshields zigzag fractals those who outlive lightning wear
        everywhere under skin, nearly insignia, tributary maps.

        Keep them distant from auto impound's concertina wire,
        corkscrewed as cartoon pigs' tails or paper streamers from exploding

        1.
        Murdered girl, man dragged to death through the dirt.

        2.
        Plastic bag tattering the branches of an ordinary tree.

        3.
        River near which the maples age, darken and brighten and increase their rings.

        When I've traveled somewhere so distant I cannot help her,
        my very hands buried, or lost, or ash,
        when I've come to the world no one returns from,
        may my daughter have grown yet more brave and whip-smart