The state we're in

A child walks into a school without his homework, 

with a cat for show and tell, with a joint 

in her pocket, with a black eye from his father, 

eating a piece of pizza, wanting to be kissed 

for the first time, planning to skip third period, 

holding a semi-automatic rifle, practicing French,

"Je m'appelle Michelle", practicing being bold 

in front of class when he talks about the exports 

of Brazil, wearing the ugly dress her mother gave her 

for Christmas, trying to channel Lady Gaga, 

intending to kill as many people as he can. 

All of these are boring now, common, normal 

American moments, as are these: her daughter will die 

every day for the rest of her life, shot again 

when she wakes, or maybe as long as it takes 

to get to the bathroom and pee, or to the coffee maker, 

her car, even all the way to lunch, making this one murder 

thousands of murders ten years from now, twenty, 

murders her memory will be guilty of, a haunting

of her clothes, her house, her breath. Imagine someone saying 

we can't do anything about cancer, booze, smack, 

high blood pressure, floods, car accidents, falls 

from ladders, falls from ambition, though 

the shrugging over guns, if accumulated, 

if all the shoulders of senators and presidents 

were added together, could lift the moon. If the world

made sense, it wouldn't be this world, 

it would be elsewhere and we'd wonder 

how we got there, if we belonged, if we were dead 

and heaven had found us, kissed us with a dream 

on our foreheads and sent us to perfect, 

waking sleep. But we don't have to worry about that.