It started with a dozen kids
who had spent a week too long
in the basement of that apartment building
that should have been torn down years ago.

God knows what those kids were up to, and God
is probably still only about half-sure of what happened
when those kids staggering out to seize control of the sunrise.

I think it was the tall-one,
the good-looking TV star with the IQ of a garbage can
who got the rest of them to join his idea of condensing
the history of movie musicals to a lot of screaming and frantic gestures.

It fucked with reality something furious,
and it cost the city about seven million dollars in damage
in just under a half-hour.

Too many innocent bystanders tried to join in at once.
The news department is still trying to repair the parts
of downtown that still haven’t come back since those few seconds
where they flashed and suddenly turned into astounding Technicolor masterpieces.

Depending on where you stand,
half of you can be as clear as digital photography
and half of you can be defined by the kinds of shades
you just don’t see any more.

Animals started telling politically incorrect knock-knock jokes.
Skyscrapers pushed the glass out into the open air
like lovers getting stoned and then overdoing their soap opera audition.

The buildings
seemed to watch like proud parents
while the glass took on all kinds of troubling shapes
and refused to touch the ground.

Not one single eye-witness thought
to document even a second of the action with their cell phones.

Those kids disappeared in all the confusion
and haven’t been heard from since.

It was over in about an hour,
but the local economy is still feeling the effects.
Too many damaged pedestrians
stumbling around as though it could come back at any second.

It’s getting to where
an honest man can’t even order a pizza.

Though on the upside
there’s never been a better time to go out
for a walk and hear nothing but your own heartbeat.

It’s a weird sound,
desperate for something more,
but you get used to it pretty quickly.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
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