Hate is a natural disaster
an organic outgas of human ego and greed
America, indivisible with liberty and justice
now vulnerable
as a wagon train in a snow globe blizzard.
Alone and lost in its own mythology
creeping over the Donner Pass of wild west social policies and
official or not
leaving the least with the least
it’s a white out.
“Justice comes only when we legislate the hell of it,” I said.
but she didn’t want to hear it.
Jaw now tense, with head slightly cocked and propped up by privileged naiveté,
“I would hope things were based on merit, character,” she quipped.
“Yeah,” I thought.
When the cars stopped too soon before the intersection it was clear something was up
Center street, steeped in the reek of fear while pedestrians hesitated,
wisely hedged their bets before crossing into the unknown.
There in our midst was God or perhaps nothing
when the driver’s door swung open and a lean, tense soul leaped out like a pale fish struggling upstream
behind, three doors flew open in sync with anger
bodies fell out looking like clowns ringside
as if carefully choreographed
I thought of Martha Graham and her elegant cowboys of Oklahoma
left for ruined on the streets of Milwaukee
hats and feet and fists in the air like frantic birds
these vultures,
fighting for whatever was left of the carcass
3 on 1
sitting in my car with the radio on
making my way to work and trying to
hang on
to the last of civilization,
listening to NPR for evidence of the lost artifacts I remembered
or maybe only imagined,
I gaped at the scene unfolding.
A beating at 8:30 in the morning in the street in the most segregated city in the country
black and white men rolling in the road
while bystanders froze like winter
anesthetized and dazed,
sipping their coffee with their front row seats and locked doors
doing nothing.
In an absence of love, humanity itself is a natural disaster.
The moment when you realize someone is dying on your watch
you lay on the horn over and over
if you are awake enough to even notice
and as you call attention to the disaster, you call out your own blindness
to the invisible hands of history as they shape a wall higher and higher, Berlin style
right here at home
and the commentator on the radio drones on and on about an upcoming French election and you remember you are supposed to be American but you aren’t entirely sure any longer what that means.
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