Matter

V takes His name in vain, when, reaching for the source,

with her ear, of the sirens, all she can find is the whine

of a red-tailed plane making a complaining descent

into Midway, veering, for the wind, from its path.

She thinks it’s a long way to go to stand between

a similar heaven and hell. It is written into V to love

the land where V was born, frigid and worn,

where woven into the code of night are stealthy

ribbons of smog that worm into the spine, the lungs,

and wait there, in the cells, crackling with growth,

to make, through great pain, themselves known.