City Burning

The city was in flames.
The whine of sirens keeping time,
syncopated choppers clapping
to the backbeat of daisy cutters
falling in the suburbs.
We huddled dark and frightened
in our caves of glass and steel.

Bile rising
I googled for some news.
The ghost of Montfort
came up on my screen
telling all the nation
how sad it was to see
collateral damage,
but the city was a cesspool,
wicked in the good Lord’s sight;
Satan’s decaying host
standing in the way
of holy prophecy,
holding back the glory
of the second coming.

Looking out our window
on the twenty second floor,
oh so penthouse sweet,
above the carnage red below.
A ‘copter flew right up
and studied us.
Bug-eyed pilot, so close
that I could see his smile
as his finger squeezed
the stick between his legs.
My lover’s head dissolved
a splash of crimson mist,
Rorschach on the off-white wall

But I survived
a helter skeltered soul,
in some burned out basement
where you too sought refuge.
We copulate,
not for love,
but as a half remembered ritual
that for a heartbeat
lets us both forget.

Woman be my country.