Overheard Lament

It would have been better
to have been born now
rather than earlier.

There would already be rules
for growing into this.
This horror would be normal
and unhappy would be 
default and somehow 
there would be love and
silliness seeded among
thorns.

Daily news
would be a stream
of heartbreak
as it is today but kids
could shrug it off and 
slowly accept gray as
a perfectly acceptable
color for lawns and 
flowers. Someone

would make a game of
bullet casings and 
police tape. Any songs
would be written
around the wail of
a siren,

and children would sleep
at least now and then
immersed in dreams of joy
fit for their times, dreams

that would seem
wounded and dim
to us today.