Sensory overload

There’s a projector that never stops
flashing images before my eyes:

the gunman the gunman the gunman
remembers his ear protection,

remembers his trigger etiquette,
remembers his extra ammunition,

the woman sobs and begs
a barrage of lenses and lights

for any information
that her mother might still be alive,

the crowd in Time Square
scatters like ducks from a pond

when it hears a motorcycle engine
backfire like a rifle,

because one day it will be,
a gunman a gunman a gunman

a lone wolf, radical, nobody man,
blunt dull instrument of death

walking like a blur
through the door through the door

through the door
and saying good-bye

without saying a word
the images of these faces

flashing before my eyes
so many so fast they blend and swirl

into a pale blank circle
with two holes for eyes

a shape that could be anyone,
a shape like a sheet

lifted up to identify the body
of every American Dream.