by Laura Madeline Wiseman
Paris is burning
not of balls
no transgendered murders
this year they burn the ghettos
boys electric heated
fear running
over steel currents
like lovers kisses
if you break it
you can privatize it
the police feel hoods of youth
if they’re damp
they've all been steeling
and then I hear bodies
igniting in Fallujah
with white phosphorus
the skin gone the clothes intact
dressed for their own funeral
whisky pete wilco
obscuration or
incineration
the stuff slips
though your mask
mud stops it
by then it’s too late
they’re all terrorists
Laura Madeline Wiseman is an award winning writer teaching at the University of Arizona. Her works have appeared in 13th Moon, The Comstock Review, Fiction International, Poetry Motel, Driftwood, apostrophe, Moondance, Familiar, Spire Magazine, Colere, Clare, Flyway Literature Review, Nebula, and other publications. She is the Literary Editor for IntheFray and a regular contributor to Empowerment4Women.