by images of a home
he once knew, destroyed —
the deconstructed fox hole
now a pile of sticks and stones
patiently waiting for the howl
of a broken man so desperate
to revive or rebuild something
not as revolting as it once was.

Somewhere in the distance,
an owl or mourning dove practices
cutting the space with its melancholy
melody, the refrain at once familiar
and strange, echoing a time
between time, nestled
in the crook of calamity.

I calmly take it all in, content
to watch the slow unraveling
of a life that isn't mine, one
or two worlds apart yet close
enough for me to realize

how it, too, yearns for another realm,
for a chance to burn their dead,
to be revived by the only song
desperate enough to crawl
back to the very place
that had once destroyed it.