a death in maryland

walking down
the flooded sniper
streets undoing my hair
letting it free
from its puritan bun

dropping
only freeze-
dried

mourning flowers at mencken's grave the
young graves-
how novel, clean
marble-

see blood still flows,
in blue veins that were
harvested from the
virginian mountains-

and my hair
is long on my
shoulders.
it is like a literary
journal, long
and light on
my shoulders walking
the streets

"maryland, my maryland"
bastardized asylum against the anglican
bastion-

like my hair
undone from
a hawthorne bun
all made of guilt
and tiny flowers-

a child opens a door and a man cries out at the principalities of far off injustice
than the child cries and people go home

and my hair
is loose on my
shoulders