Sister Cities

So this is war. No barbed-wire marks the front.
Hot metal plows into the dumbstruck crowd
—and then, the screaming. There’s nowhere to run.
Your enemy is here, close as a shroud
close as your shivered breath that mists the blade
before your eyes. A civil war. A neighborhood
affair. My fellow citizens, betrayed
we stand where once our finest dreams had stood.

So this is war. How it begins. And where—
Charlottesville and Portland: sisters, bled
in common cause. Three thousand miles of distance—
opposite coasts, same side of resistance.
Martyrs linked by a weave of scarlet thread,
a banner raised against the torches’ glare.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside