It's their ways to detain, their ways to disgrace
"A Singer Must Die", Leonard Cohen

One evening early
with sunset stretched like a tiger skin
across the sky a waste lot
comes to life. Ominous questions
of identity scatter on the sidewalk with the weeds
and the asking outlives all the answers.

Another time, just out walking, nowhere to be
but a summer afternoon
when a voice issues directly from the sun
asking for name and address and the reason
for being outside when even
a blue uniform is like smoke in the heat.

Same street, next time
it’s dark and the moon shines down
spotlight style. It wants to know who it has stopped
before slipping its face behind a cloud. Does the rain
keep a record of where
it has fallen? The groundwater knows

who protested the war, who joined hands
with the homeless, who is black, who is white, who
has no color at all, and who
happens to look
like somebody they’re not. Is innocence
a defense against the light? Was it the stars
who tapped the phone?

Late morning, the order not to move. Stay perfectly still,
say your name; let it plead Not guilty,
let it fly among the city pigeons
who survive on scraps
and ancient wits.