SUBURBAN TEENS

Suburban teens
place candles and flowers
and make maudlin shrines
where other youngsters died
in accidents and murders
Suburban teens hold vigils
expressing their right to rituals
of their own
Kids become intimate with the lives of dead
they never knew alive
trite and necessary truths
for their solidarity
The media feeds and captures the sentiment
indulging in outrage
victims and vengeance
for its own ends
It is real

RECENT ACCUMULATIONS AND APPROPRIATED VOICES, Kalayaan Publications, 1997