Dave Bonta's short poem moves from a sour mood to a flat piece of news and then to a private worry. It opens with a morning that feels "askew," slightly off balance, and a startling claim: "we hate one another / for being possible." Hatred here doesn't need a reason. Other people simply existing is enough to provoke it, which is a bleak way to describe division.
The news item, "they shot a dead man," is brief and chilling. The words suggest violence that continues past the point of sense, or perhaps a report so routine that its absurdity goes unnoticed. The poem gives no explanation, and that silence adds to the unease.
The last lines turn inward. The speaker says "I must beware of falling," and calls it a "lasting art." That phrase is ambiguous: falling might mean literal stumbling, moral collapse, or sliding into the same hatred described earlier. The mood is wary, tired, and quietly alarmed, as if the speaker is trying to stay upright in a tilted world.