it lullabied shrapnel, each raindrop a fracture of time; tick marks leaving their mark, streets clocked with tics. the clouds, red-handed. you start to foxhole dry days inside metaphors with- out a meta, each meaning without a means in a campaign where even body language is not plain English, non- verbal cues detonating into a sort of broken English, English in pain; more shrapnel. the way home doesn't shun us in its nightly moment of silence; we try to stop noticing the streetlights, how their heads hang half-mast.