lumbering silence in Bodnar's

Thick and grey, lumbering hulks
trumpet the silence....

We don't talk about the elephant
in the living room, it would disturb
the feng shui, wouldn't it?
You and I belong in our designer kitchens
don't we, naked with the pots and pans
just washed and scrubbed and shiny,
clinging to images we have
of ourselves, Americans to the hilt
of our absurdity.
We don't get to buy a two-way ticket
to return things to how they once were,
before the open air prison of our streets,
our homes and neighborhoods.

We can't do over this reality.

We just put lipstick on the corpse and say "she looks good"
or shake our heads in disbelief "how he must have suffered".
The weapon and the injury hidden from view. The flowers' scents
overwhelming, distracting us from seeing the dead's last walkabout
the parlor.