September 20, 2026Six Months
On the bus, my neighbors don’t notice me
crying, distracted by the blue of their screens
flickering like summer’s end. Six months left
until the internet eats itself, I hear. The wind
and rain have knocked out a traffic light
again. We’re all idling in a line at sunrise,
late and getting later, but the only horn I hear
is blown by a utility worker who has clearly died
only to return as an angel, half-fallen
against the dropped tailgate of his truck,
wailing on a trumpet older than God, the kind
that gets credit for tumbling down walls
when the real story is that someone just felt
what’s coming and turned that inevitability
into rushing air—the sound of escaping,
transforming, and everyone is blinking
back their own tears now, so the world blurs
like a signal has gone dead and the one tone
droning out the rest is a cue to start singing
a song we couldn’t stream till now.
from Poets Respond
