[Newspoetry] It's All Relative

[Mike Lehman]

It's All Relative

30 plus killed by gunfire on campus
American media focus in
The nation grinds to a halt
As people ask "Why?"
Oddly
By now the medianesthesia
Has numbed them all
To the daily, nay hourly carnage
On the streets of
Baghdad, Falluja, Baquba, et cetera
A whole nation full of hometowns
Regular Joes and Jezebels
Who numb themselves daily
As they experience
Their own experience with
The multifarious wonders of American mass production
Of death
"Why?"
And what is more shocking?
That we experience death here
Differently?
How do you think they feel
About us
And our paltry loss?
It's all relative.