On June 13, 2016–right in the middle of one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history–“an American-born man who’d pledged allegiance to ISIS gunned down 49 people…at a gay nightclub in Orlando.” The Pulse Nightclub shooting was, at […]
The speed with which the COVID-19 pandemic has completely upended and shut down ordinary life in America is both stunning and terrifying.
I am a wealthy god who cares about the poor.
I’ve built them shopping malls to worship me,
paid for stained-glass windows to let in a little light
filtered in my image, crafted search engines to ask
for things I am too wise to give away:
Celebrating the birthday of a nonprofit you founded doesn’t have the same nostalgia-soaked feeling as your own birthday: rather than the bittersweet recollections of childhood, this celebration has the bracing feel of adulthood.
The dishwasher hums and the laundry’s put away.
Clean sheets, clean cutlery. A puddle of dust
on the hardwood, but the dog is on my lap
and a drowsy rain perfumes the house.
To secure a future we must understand
The difference between terror and fear.
Walk into a room and hear a snake’s sudden hiss,
See it squirming in a dark corner, two reptilian eyes
Piercing darkness like fangs in search of your
We adults know the future is bleak.
Have jobs, families, to-do lists.
Do what we can.
Know in our hearts that
It’s not enough.
I’m not going to argue the absurd, argue
That things are bad or going to get better.
We live in an age of immutable belief shaped
To write is to argue without evidence that beauty
pervades: the rainforest and the killing field,
sunsets and floods of acid rain on I-95.
I notice my parents’ aging as I do my own:
Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.