Pulling Out
Exodus is a traffic jam,
and traffic jams are dangerous.
Ahead of us, armed with sticks and rakes,
a child’s brigade does battle
on this doomed track hourly blown to dust.
To occupy themselves, they race a tank.
Dust is faster. Tattered surveillance blimps
yank against steel tethers over the saltlick plain.
The road goes boom again. The flimsy means
by which we try to distance war
don’t matter anymore. Disguise your car,
your hair, take to the air, stare down
on the terrible mirror of the ground
where those who didn’t qualify
for tickets to the sky
wave goodbye, goodbye.
Source: Poetry (March 2019)