It’s a lovely March New England day,
40 with a high of 48.
My joints have grown stiff with winter,
But surely spring has time to spare!
Perhaps in April I’ll ride my bike.
A rock skips across the sky,
Leaves concentric circles of cloud
To wonder at.
It does not matter who lit the flame
That burned the Reichstag down,
Only that it burned and so few
Considered what cremation means
To those who long for proper burial.
In Ronda the cliffs are steep
And the waters mild so far as I recall;
Her sun sets on a landscape of olives and dust,
She swallows time in great gulps of oil and sky—
Nothing but a flock of pre-dawn breeze,
And florid sky, and lake
Taut with water, like a sail:
A painting in motion, unfinished.
I had thought I lacked for time
And spent my days frantic,
As though life were a web
And death a looming spider, his
Approach inexorable, his mouth
A relentless South Texas wind poses impossible questions,
Flaps the smirking flags until they are upturned,
Mists the mown grass with evil’s sputum,
Ripples the lone unarmed security guard’s shirt
As he waves concentration camp employees
I am become the poet of resistance.
I write like a comet, a solar flare,
A sawed-off shotgun,
And where my words no longer suffice
Let them mingle with my blood,
What if you can’t do well do good?
What if my electric car
And diligent recycling
Mean less than nothing to
The slave-wage worker
They’ve separated 2,000 children.
No, they’ve discarded them
Like cans of Coca-Cola,
2,000 children who reached our shore
Like sea foam, salty, crying salt,