I hire the police that protect my home from the hordes
that would tax me: I need nothing from the State, and so
give nothing to the State.
Peel back my eyes
and touch the still-healing wound
oozing cerebral fluid from the Big Bang.
It’s in this blind space of raw pain
I often dwell.
I just read that the virus is mutating, anti-vaxxers are joining other unsavory elements to protest public health measures, the president doesn’t see the need for mass testing but is now getting tested daily…
I want to rest on the shore
until the urchins break skin
and the salt seeps in.
I notice my parents’ aging as I do my own:
Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.
I’ve been hearing Save the Rainforest
since I was small enough to sleep
in the safety of my parent’s bed
or snuggled with stuffed animals—
pandas, giraffes, monkeys, frogs;
A rock skips across the sky,
leaves concentric circles of cloud
to wonder at.
A relentless South Texas wind poses impossible questions,
flaps the smirking flags until they are upturned,
mists the mown grass with evil’s sputum,…
They’ve separated 5,500 children.
No, they’ve discarded them
like cans of Coca-Cola,
5,500 children who reached our shore
like sea foam, salty, crying salt…
Why can I not forget when forgetting is the cure?
The warm, wet beach hisses and coos, but her allure
Belongs to those who want to rest. I do not want to rest.
“Listen to your doctor,” they say.
“You are but human! You can’t go on like this!”