Thursday, June 15, 2017

day ONE HUNDRED FORTY SEVEN



Mr. Rogers

Do you think he should get immunity,
she asks me,
Michael Flynn, she adds
and I glance up from my computer
after reading another article
on what happens next
or what the fuck just happened.

I don’t know, I say
because the truth is
I don’t.
I don’t know and I don’t know
if I have the energy to keep going
at this rate
I can feel the center
shaking loose.
It cannot hold.

And this is before the morning
that I will wake
to read about children dead
about how much blood there was
and a man who laid on the floor
next to his wife
watching the bolts
and screws sink
in all that thick blood.

I will see the faces of terrified children
and I will not be able to look away.
I will see desperate terrified parents
and I will not be able to look away.

I will think of children that I love
their small beautiful hands.
I will cry in the kitchen.

I don’t know, I tell her
I don’t know anything anymore.
And then I realize this is not true.
Because the only thing I do know
is that humans
cannot
be trusted to care for each other.
That it is in our nature to fight
to rend
to break and steal from each other.

And then I think
No.
That is what they want you to believe.
It is how they divide us.
Find the helpers.
You’ll know there is hope
just like Fred said.
Keep the love,
press it to you
lay it like a cool hand
on a burning forehead.

--Ally Malinenko 

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