By Keegan Flanagan 

a store is robbed 

at gunpoint. 

   one man stands locked 

and loaded 

     on a clerk working for change. 

Graveyard shift. 

The robber stares at the clerk, 

      dead-eyed 

hands shaking in the register, 

      Bullseye. 

Pop! 

the gunman stopped 

at a smoke joint 

with hands full of cash 

      and asked for a pack  

of camels to go. 

He left no one alive. 

I wonder what it’s like 

     to be a bird on those nights 

  flying from the sound  

of snapping branches and 

bathing in pools of rain 

ran through by a man in a rush 

      on the run from screaming cars. 

I would love to fly.