Gutter, Gutter
 
Morning is a neighborhood butcher
who sweeps away from sight with his gloved hand
all the entrails from last night's kill.
 
The park maintenance crew arrives with the mowing blade.
The survivors of the night shift trundle home.
The joggers and their dogs breeze past the homeless.
 
I wait for the six o'clock genocide.
I inhale, and the restaurant doors swing shut
severing heads and limbs in mid-stride.
 
Love-struck, I slink along the hallways.
The warm chatter. The sound of car engines. The carnage.
Everything wants to give up its light.
 
- Kristine Ong Muslim