Moon at Half Past Noon

A thousand cities bloom with their righteous noise.
A forest of signs, a symphony of chants.
They have pinned their hearts to their sleeves,
a fashion of fury for a pain they watch on sleek glass.

Their sky is not torn by the shriek of metal.
Their earth does not remember the weight of the fallen.
Their candles are pretty, pinpricks of light against a vast, dark screen.
They gasp in unison at the news anchor’s crescendo,
a million cuts drawn on a map they will never have to fold
and pack into a single bag, fleeing.

They speak of solidarity, a beautiful, distant word.
It travels the cables beneath the ocean, a digital ghost.
It does not smell of cordite and crushed concrete.
It does not have the taste of blood and dust.
They are a chorus singing an elegy for a body
they have never touched, from an ocean away,
an ocean away.