Small Targets

Vincent Hostak

October 6, 2024

U.S. Officials Believe Israel Will Not Conduct Full Invasion of Lebanon, New York Times, September 30, 2024

“After a weekend of intense talks, the American officials said they believed that Israel was planning only smaller, targeted incursions in southern Lebanon.”

Late last night 

a river of thirty thousand birds  

coasted across the Texas skies. 

I saw a single Chimney Swift pause above the eaves. 

Correlation is not causation, yet, 

I’ll dim my porchlight before sunset, I suppose. 

In Beiruit,

families seek the safety of a flock

in frugal light from the waning moon

and sleep on blankets near the steps of the Martyr’s Square.

They have doused the lights in homes to the south 

which otherwise glow like small targets in the night.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.