WEBVTT

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November 2020.

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Dear--.

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Washed out haze of nights with
Saturn and Jupiter blazing like

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faces distant enough to be safe.

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How can they be other worlds?

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I ask myself all the
time without ever asking

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to see my way out of darkness.

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I'll tell you plainly.

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A neighbor I've never seen
walked out of his house

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with a shotgun and shot
through teachers' cars parked

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at the school between us.

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His house kitty-corner
from mine, cats and pigeons

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hunched together at the
curb outside his house

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all I knew of him.

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Some truce between them to
sit like that, fed on whatever

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he, unseen, put out.

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I wasn't home that
morning, my neighbors

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and the internet offering
scraps of that hour.

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The masked woman walking
her dog, his voice caustic

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across the open air,
screaming, "Communists,

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I'm gonna start the
next Civil War."

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He did not come for her
as he said he would,

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no body in the line of fire.

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The bullet's path into metal
and across the playground,

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emptied for months, teachers
sheltering in a bathroom

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inside.

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Over the bullhorn,
the police negotiator

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did her work, calm, coaxing
him to walk out again.

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For weeks after, the
landlord hauled out garbage,

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a ghost turned out on to the
curb for everyone to see.

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The neighbor still in custody,
remote as any light I cannot

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reach.

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I pray then neglect my prayers
for him, for the school,

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for neighbors I
see never or daily.

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Today I walked out and
saw Venus and Mercury,

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those steady lights
against dawn.

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And I watched for them
to fade, wondering.

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