…the “I am” to which all messages are sent
…unwavering and pure no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us
…may be the only sacred thing left in the world
—Rabo Karabekian</small>

in the cold war movie we watched last night,
a satire, black and white, soldiers stormed their
own home base to stop a rogue general’s doomsday
airplanes. the friendly forces shooting each other
—blue-on-blue, it’s called—made us cringe like
watching a slug crawl on a razor’s edge.

induction says if the premise is true and each next logical
step is true then an infinite number of steps
are true. my

premise: a shooter on a left-flank
maneuver, tracking through holographic
sights, mouth full of carbon dust, sweat-
filled eyes, pulls the trigger. but he missed
the command to cease fire and his new-guy
buddy, ahead of the leader, stumbles into
the screaming lead. our shooter feels
sick—a sleeping mother who smothered
her newborn—or that slug on the razor’s
edge. my

step: the brother of my brother is also
my brother

where is the line then, thin and red, and how
far can we draw it, one plus one plus one a circle
consuming a curving globe until no one
is left outside it. the

world: swept as if by an early morning
tide, inhales so deep it hurts, that first cold
breath after waves of surf you thought would
never end. it wakes on a beach where gold
mist crumbles into dawn, air is sharp as the note
of a steel guitar, sea and sky fold into a new
horizon. shards of time-smoothed glass, once
broken and scattered and jagged, will wash
up on shore. each now a pebble, held up
to sunrise, constellation in a crystal, conch
shell singing the call of the universe, star-
dust pulsing its shade
of thin blue light

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a donation from Mary Soon Lee during our annual Fund Drive.]