From space the river is loose thread.
Frayed but clearly discernible. 

A wall but not a wall. 

At county, a jailer winds it around his neck.
Surrenders to unconditional embrace.

Some will use it for a labyrinth. 
Others for escape as night dictates.

At the old Fort Brown emptied when a white woman cried
that a black battalion had committed the crime

of supposing the air could also be theirs
a room sparks as if drowned by gasoline.

Murder is too nice a word
for what was baptized in the water.

Now, at the little church overlooking despair,
a new kind of invasion replaces the old. 

Children in sisal sandals.
Old guns call new guns to scour the shore. 

In false panic
there is no such thing as empathy.