discussing fear while thinking of a poem by leonard cirino

driving east
through a small town where
a man has murdered five children
with a hammer

where the days grow shorter
but the sky is still blue
and streaked with jet exhaust and
i have been thinking about the myth
of the american minotaur

i have been thinking about
the approaching winter
when this woman next to me asks
what my biggest fear is
and i turn to her beautiful profile and say
my son dying before he
turns fifty

and she nods and asks
what else?
and i say
my son dying after he turns fifty
and what i miss the most out here are
the hills

the sense that
there is more to this life than
man-made objects turning slowly
to dust

the air heavy not with screams
but with the
absence of laughter