CNN is airing re-runs again.
It’s that sad one
with the minor chord piano tune and the static images,
the tears frozen on puffy cheeks, a flag photoshopped into the background.

Didn’t this episode take place in California though,
and weren’t the dead community workers,
the glimmer of their martyrdom
embedded in the goodness of their deeds?

Or was it Colorado
and the dead theatre-goers,
violence spilling off the screen, life imitating art or art imitating life,
as if there were a difference?

Or children? I remember children in Connecticut.
No, no, that would have been too much.
That must have been the Craven film on HBO
or the nightmare I had afterwards.

Funny how the more you watch,
the more the details dissolve into the theme,
names and places becoming thoughts and prayers,
shapeless as pools of blood.

I know I’ve seen this one though,
Wolf Blitzer there stuttering
his incredulity like gunfire,
automatic and useless.