Shading In The Painting Of A Shootout

The same handful of faces
rule the streets between our houses
and the freeways that connect
our towns together.
Like the girl who is out of everyone’s
league but occupies the minds
of all who see her.
Heavy industry like a panel of titans
who chain smoke and slouch behind
the grocery stores we shop at to ignore them.
City apartments where you can’t tell
if out the window is a cage
or just the rusted fire escape stuck
in the way of you.

In a gunfight between an agent on a roof
out in the suburbs and a fugitive pinned down
behind an oak tree, each of them wastes
their bullets towards the other until
they both run out, and hyperventilate,
while holding on to cover.
This is until it rains and they somehow
slip away into the field of motion
no eye sight can permeate,
and all the gods create with finger paint
that courses through us all
because they put it there,
but they don’t care how much of it
we spill because that’s how
it all was meant to run together.