There’s a shooting —
maybe at a school or 
a night club —

or an injustice — rights
being taken from someone
or a swift deportation and
separation from family —

or a scandal — a sex thing
or maybe it’s espionage
or a mix of both —

and while shaking your head
and exclaiming your now-routine
amazement and shock 
at such goings on

you are shocked and amazed
all over again when your head
falls right off
and rolls across the ground
for what seems like an eon
before it comes to rest
against a Civil War replica cannon
being used in a reenactment 

and without warning your head
gets rammed down the barrel 
and in a blast of sulfur and flame
you are flying toward the other side

your loose and empty head
having become someone else’s ammo
for this drawn out massacre called
The American Experience
and you realize

if you had just had your head
tied a little more tightly 
to something solid
like an understanding of history
to hold it down
instead of being so floaty
with reaction and awe at
the everyday more of the same

you might have avoided this

you might have at least been 
the one firing the cannon

you might at best have been
the one who stopped it from firing