Dear policemen: I am God.
-- message left on a Tarot card

Destiny rests in my hands,
with a wooden stock,
black bored metal,
and a high-powered scope.

I decide when it’s your time.
There is no rhyme,
there is no reason.
It’s nothing personal;
it just is.

I catch you, magnified
in your everyday,
at the store, at the school,
at the gas pump.

I dissect you,
pin you in the crosshairs
like a butterfly,
your muscular neck,
your pretty head –

and unleash my finger of God,
piercing so quickly
you hardly feel a thing.
Then I move on.

Who shall it be tomorrow?
I am outside the barricades,
I am hidden from the plane’s eagle eye.

I am above you all,
I am next to you all,
my divine random acts,
my omnipotence,
my vengeance,
my gun.

10/17/2002

Author's Note: There are a number of theories about the sniper currently terrorizing the Maryland-Virginia-D.C. area, which is only about two hours from my home. I tried to imagine what someone like this might be thinking, if indeed they are not doing it for political reasons (a theory that is even more chilling).

Posted on 10/17/2002
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