The Riot

we only saw the images hot orange flames torching the dark structure the town had exploded mayhem and broken glass and hundreds of more fires crashed into the soup of unformed anger, the metaphors swam around in incandescent television scenes

there were thousands in the streets the stores picked like open closets and others burned to charcoal the country had wavered and then shook, the waves shivered from the west to the east and nothing mattered but the violence which cooked like steaming lava

what went wrong they all asked what happened who were the sinners? but no one could agree but for the web that wound like a silk robe around the smoldering city

the smoke staining the sky with black imprints, the air milled with words that stung and scattered and the ocean full of the souls that were now dead

we saw, we mourned