Driving a white county car

to weigh a baby,

to lend an ear to a mother three days old,

the nurse is stopped by a motorcade-

engines rumbling and a line of lights sparkling

to the horizon of Pac Highway

like an angry Christmas tree.

Near the cemetery, men and women

in stiff jackets, green and gold,

line the sidewalk.

Faces tightened, hiding tears.

White gloves rise up in the air.

The coffin comes draped in a flag.

The young mother's aunties and her mother

live across four countries' borders.

Her neighbors come and go, 747s

leaping from the tarmac.

Her husband is her only one

and he is always working.

But the baby's fine. Eyes are white,

diaper's wet, her lungs are strong.

The nurse tells secrets of the first milk,

checks her watch

and promises to return.

In the breakroom, she reads headlines

skipped since Sunday

about the lawyer who came home to White Center

to become a cop,

beloved by all accounts. Headlines

about the man who shot him.

They say in the afternoon

he made another man lie down naked in the street

and shot him too.

Before dawn, he aimed a bullet at himself.

We shake our heads and ask

what makes a man thirst for blood,

for others' and his own?

Let me ask you:

What blows received this child?

What hunger? What hatred?

What happened to his mother?

And to her mother?

And to her's?

Jeremy O. Simer

White Center