Recalling Yeats, Learning of the Mass Shootings in El Paso and Dayton,
Rocking Our Son Back to Sleep

The lips of the angels
Blister and flame.
Their mouth pieces painful
From trumpeting name

After name. They lay down
Their horns and the dead 
Still arrive, dying to drown
Out the hush in their heads

That would crush paradise. 
You have their hymns
In your skin memorized,
Spilling your lungs and your limbs.

You don’t sleep. You don’t sleep. 
Your delicate chest
How it wails and it weeps
That overcome angels might rest.