by Charles Thielman
Headlines promising a day
of dark wings fed by thermals, sirens
circle below the plank of a dangerous night.
A paper carrier, fingers darkened by newsprint,
his arms full, walks beneath an arch of birdsongs,
porch to cement stoop, dropping The Chicago Tribune
on welcome mats, eyes and ears tracking the slow cars
and suspect doorways, pre-dawn sky like new skin,
a veneer over balsa grain, today being his turn
to raise the flag above half-mast, much
still held sacred this spring.
Charles Thielman is a poet and artiste, and a fervent supporter of Greenpeace.
