We knew these would be hard years; at least we can laugh,
say I love you, watch for the flags at half-staff.
No Comment
A Love Sonnet Written on the Occasion of the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
September 19, 2020
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.
Strolling Great Hollow Beach, Cape Cod 50 Days Before the Election
September 15, 2020
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.
Fluorescent Fire
August 30, 2020
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.
My Holy War
July 3, 2020
I refuse to socially distance;
I won’t give up my freedom.
How short is the distance
between tyranny and freedom!
The Righteously Aggrieved
June 22, 2020
When statues topple, they do little heaving.
You will not see them celebrate long their fall
or mount the wreckage on a wall.
(Who are you to ask that they applaud
your moment of awakening?
I Remain Marvelously Alive
June 20, 2020
In the creak and give of floorboards,
hollow of trees felled by storms,
fists of despots, palms of departing lovers,
click of deadbolts, swing of doors;
Play by the Rules
June 19, 2020
To be trapped in an era, this era,
is the poet’s nightmare and delight. O future
readers—if there will be readers—what will you make
of this? What shall I—what shall we—bequeath you?
How Can We Lose When We’re So Sincere?
June 14, 2020
The true traitor lacks not morals but moral imagination. I shall
no longer grant the premise that we must debate amidst the
rubble of a world the unimaginative have plundered—
It’s Complicated
June 7, 2020
A friend texted to say it’s irresponsible to protest during a pandemic. All those people
crowded together become vectors for the virus, which doesn’t care about race. I hadn’t
thought of Covid-19 as post-racial, the enlightened bug.