Watching Cable News,
Bomb victims wrapped
in trauma bags, triage
in process.
Recurring file footage,
am man still wrapped,
lately among the missing,
the injured, talking on
a cell phone, gesturing.
How odd to see a
continual man, dressed
this way, no longer part
of the medical scene
We, as watchers, are
caught in the video replay
world, must recalibrate
our thinking: this is not
some Hannibal Lechter
rewind movie but Paris,
France, today, in the midst
of a terror attack.
Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.