Wilderness

Like molds
in our kitchen cupboard, savagery clings
to the air we breathe – someone
who has just dined with us disappeared;
a friend on her way to donate blood
                    was murdered.

We live in a country led by leeches
and truth-butchers; what else can we expect?
We’ve been used to it; but no,
we aren’t numb; we still bleed
and rage.

Cuts distinctly deep, though,
is a message we posted
on a long thread of comradeship –

warm words of greetings
and intimacy and well wishes. Seen. Just
seen – what else could be sadder

than the sight of seeds
sown on stony soil?

Deeper still, like Adam
and Eve who fell out of God’s grace
in Paradise, we’ve been thrown out.
Unfriended.