It is hard not to look down from these heights
on the unfeeling flatlands
of southeast Hagerstown, its minor-league

And even one’s sour self can seem to be
Innocent of the malice that is poison.

shrubs so petal heavy
their limbs swim in the light
                                                            wind

Scared sacred scarred
the aging and unread bard

Like everything else they are
like nothing else—

sweetly going with death; away from
me; plastic bag extending into infinity

It is all death, right from the start,
That fluttering agitation in the violins.
Even the love duet, by nightfall

But in the stippled, rose velvet
Buds of staghorn sumac, in rust-
  Bright veins of briar,

“I seen it lots of times, I seen it, just from being on the street when something was going down, I seen kids get killed, a few, my buddy Jules got bucked, this gang he was down with, I mean he wasn’t even down with them when they started beefin with this other gang, but one day, it was hot, I remember it was real hot, 

In a land where you will go but from where you will never return,
Little Black Cricket, you’ll follow music inside a mountain 
with the other children. Then the rock will be sealed