Is it too late for things that hope to grow?
What does it say that the sapling’s leaves
have already turned?
Here we reward the worst crimes with a cushy job
at a White Shoe law firm that does pro bono work
for the ACLU.
If life is a lucid dream or some near-perfect
computer simulation, do I risk waking up
to a world in which I can’t embrace you?
As the Enola Gay has circled overhead, I’ve gained weight,
and obsessed over coverage of its flight: Will we be spared,
or perish? What orders have been given, and who or what will the pilot obey?
Humanity risks extinction because
we love the wrong things too much.
I am under no illusions. To love you is
to resist oblivion, to laugh at craters.
We knew these would be hard years; at least we can laugh,
say I love you, watch for the flags at half-staff.
I want to touch what aches in us, the light
we guard to stay alive. My dear, come quick.
I hear a knock; I’m afraid. Is it you?
I dare to open and let hope come through.
After four years, it has come to this:
I fear that all I love will go to ruins,
and my little son is playing on the dunes.
O fluorescent fire, O heat that singes but not does burn,
would that you could consume me, I might never rise again
to brave fascist bullets or heroically weed my vegetable beds.
I refuse to socially distance;
I won’t give up my freedom.
How short is the distance
between tyranny and freedom!