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When the Wing Gives Way

             I
  
How to feel his death? On the street.
The shots. My friend’s scream. 
One cracked the air, the other 
pierced the thin veil, a usual evening 
returning from somewhere,
returned from many times before.

When I look for where to fix the broken city that I love, 
the whole tower wobbles. What the government hasn’t done. 
What the gunmen’s’ parents didn’t do. What hands the drug lords forced.
What? What I haven’t done with my puny song?

And now: the sirens.
And now: the neighbors say, “Did he resist?” 
And now: how can I live in this place or any place?
Can I live with myself—a part of his self, lying there, 
a part of the selves who dropped him there.
All of us, under the wing that is no wing.

             II

In my mind-voice, without knowing why 
or from where it came, a whisper:

        “When the wing gives way…” 
        “When the wing gives way…”

I want to be more ready than I am today.
Ready to let what is left lift me, draw me into meanings 
that will shatter me more than this.