Questions For The Wee Hours

Ah, Americans,
my little ones,
the television
too often spits
the shrapnel
of distant bombings
at our spirit.
We’ve grown
to expect this
and it leads to questions:

if you hear your neighbor
in the street at three AM,
do you reach for your gun?

Are there moments
when you just roll over,
go back to sleep, figure
it’ll be worth asking about
over the side fence
in the morning? 

Or perhaps
you’ll say nothing at all
because you don’t know
his name, because no news
is good news?

What exactly
are you spending
on defense these days?