Poem by Robert Priest Lesser Shadows the buildings wait for the assassins the shadows are prepared for them-- they flow like dark sheets of blood from underneath the doors there are many vacant rooms many rifles waiting soon the assassins begin to arrive they are all a little crazy moved by politics or dark desires they are tense and frightened but eager, jostling one another for places at the windows there are assassins behind bushes assassins on roofs and distant hilltops there are so many assassins there are assassins crouched in shadows of assassins it is good that the victim is young and wealthy. it is good that he seems to symbolize something now they prepare their weaponry his car goes by the triggers click a thousand bullets meet inside a single head the skull explodes the president is dead silently, some with spittle running from the corners of their mouths, some dazed, as though awaking from a trance the assassins file out of the buildings past the shocked, staring faces to the highways past the farthest edges of the sun's descending red and, as night absorbs the lesser shadows America absorbs her murderers completely All contents copyright © 1998 The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.