Flumes Volume 2: Issue 1, Summer 2017 | Page 103

I passed by the factory

twice yesterday, on my way

to brunch with a friend.

It's not that I was near death,

but that we're always near death

and must somehow still live.

These terrible tragedies

are happening daily,

wrenching families apart,

bringing grief to a whole town,

to a nation.

But it's not enough grief,

evidently,

it's not enough suffering yet,

to move back from the edge

of the abyss, the place

where we lay down our weapons.

It's never enough.

We always want more.

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