The radio shoots out
Accounts from first hand witnesses
In Santa Fe.
I don’t want to hear
More details.
By now, it’s something
Predictable:
Some were injured,
Some were safe, hidden,
Some were killed.
Inevitably a teacher dove
In front of some students
To protect them,
And was killed.
Inevitably, the shooter took
His own life.
And we will call him
“Misunderstood”
“Forlorn”
“Alone”
“Rejected”
And say
“How did we not see it coming?”
And
“Why was he sold automatic weapons?”
And
“Why aren’t there harsher gun laws?”
And we will all collectively mourn
For the parents and the children,
Whether we fall on one side
Of the political coin
Or the other.
And life will go on for most of us,
Until the next one.
By now,
It’s become predictable.
By now,
We already know what happened
Even before we’re told.
E.H. 2018
