Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

***
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 
A king did not die, a president
was not acquitted, a balloon

did not fly around the world

in twenty days, at 84

-
-
a doctor convicted of doctoring
death? No, and no, nothing
launched street to street
in order to bring peace, or

white, but no viruses named

after women spread across
the globe, and the Word

-
and if people prayed for war
to become holy, those prayers

unpredictable, that happened,

and if anything else did,
like shots fired at people
mistaking the ocean for the sky?
That year, the weather was

the ground split open and

the 17,000 who would die, let’s say,
miraculously, they did not, not

praying, no one heard them,

in 1999, the year two lifelong
enemies shook hands and said

who loved and did not sink into

the sea. Let’s not talk
on the moon, the earth,

and six billion who, for once,

got everything right and not
a single thing wrong.
…………..
“columbine” did not enter
the consciousness of a nation.

with white hair, Joe DiMaggio

was not mourned. And air strikes

about rampages, disasters,

conflicts or coupes that never

happened, except flowers purple

the year before bloomed

What about the bomb

that made a mistake, or the famous
son of a famous president
went unanswered. In Turkey,

lie about that? Let’s say

the child from Cuba arrived

there will be peace, but

their palms never touched, why
not an orphan but with his mother,

ruined a perfectly good year

during which the sun shined