They dance like paper dolls
each locked in a waltz that cannot be undone
shouting comments about heroin, jail, and the various
profanities that rule their lives
of powerful ego they have been made
forged in violence, made strong through the decades
by any number of needles and lines
or smoke and chemicals that have framed their existence
pit bulls that wander the streets in search of idealized
freedom
seeking some kind of solace in their self-reliance
as they sleep on the street just outside of their fence
strays that have nowhere else to go
find refuge behind the tarpaulin-coated gate
street dogs find refuge here
when their owners vanish into the back of a squad car, never
to be heard from again
as that same gestapo crawls down the street religiously
worshiping their paper god with an assault rifle at the
ready, as if superior
in this twisted joke where the trains never stop for an
instant
where sirens and helicopters rule the land and air
out at the edge the burros call out
crying in the darkness to a land that was once barren but
filled with definite life
as the memories of what once was vanish
into the sound of a helicopter
under the light-polluted sky
