Manhunt

I have a friend who kills people. A friend who says I’ll see you in the summer —Inshallah. A friend who creeps into the impossible dark, doing the thing he’s good at. He becomes a mirage, a violence I move through—

Years ago, I sat alone in the cinema, bewitched by the gliding horror of Zero Dark Thirty— a winged narrative, it swooped —green death after green death. Which bodies deserve to live? Mine? His? When I walked back into the blinding movie poster hallway—all blaring grins & proclamations of happiness, I recoiled from the onslaught, returned to the body I had understood in the zero hour. I didn’t know him then.

Now it’s not quite morning, and there he is, running past my pre-dawn window. Later, he might open a door for me, our hands grazing knuckles at breakfast:

I’m a good, kind man who kills folks. And there are trees & trees where he runs. And there is snow.