Depth charge

Retired from the ranks of the perennially outraged, I cast my lot amongst shrubs, shrews, sparrows, and sand dunes.

I walk into the setting sun, picking up tin cans and spent shotgun shells— partridges that amount to little more than plastic, now, even as they once housed so much violence.

What happened to all that heat, explosion? As it turns out, the deeper I plumbed into my own depths, the more clearly I heard the previously peripheral, persistent clarion call of my own shame.

And now, the more I answer it, the more I find the calls grow fewer. Giving way to silence.