The sky chokes on smoke
snaking its way from Canada
to our hills that hide a hundred
words for green. Now dulled
and hazed to fewer shades,
just as we are, to fear
and anger only.

Z practices for the test:
rule of law, checks and balances,
powers of the president. Smoke
obscures the answers as I struggle
to explain democracy, at least
the ideal behind this scrim.

She weighs her choices: to appear
at the appointed day and time
and risk the masked men, or
slip back into the shadows.
Not unlike the day she fled
terror by boarding the last plane
to this vague kind of freedom.