Tkhine in Chesvan

Election Day 2008,
a holiday where newscasters were intelligent
as if the moment had brought out the best in them and in us,
friends picked up their phones to call and text message,
the same people we would talk to years later
remembering the evening when the world changed color,
telling the story
of where we were and what we were doing
when city streets shifted
with faces uplifted
and hearts flew out in the shape of doves.

Fly to the nearest branch
before salmon go extinct
before dreams are quarantined.

Follow a wing,
an opening through clouds.

Lead us from this desert of ticker tape
that measures value by each day's closing.
Fly, fly to the nearest bare branch

away to a mountain-top
where striped tropical fish
swim with the prophets.