On the news, war tumbles on.
Protestors fall in the street.
A child comes home

to find her mother,
father, and babysitter dead.
A mother and baby

are diagnosed together.
A sophomore girl is gunned down,
by mistake, in an elevator.

I switch off the television
and step outside. What does it take
to see what darkness gives?

Tonight, it crosses my mind
how gone you are, and stars,
if stars say anything, say Otherwise.