First,

I’m not embarrassed to say
I’m glad he’s dead.
I acknowledge the hyena in me.

Next,

I’m not embarrassed to say
you embarrass me
by choosing from among
so few sides
when there are so many
to choose from
when looking at this.

I’m looking at you
with your flag and your beer
and your three-letter chant
and your brave,
brave sneer.

I’m looking at you
with your Truth fliers
and your semi-conscious racist
undertone:

no way those brown bastards
could have done that to us.

I’m looking at you
reciting the ritual retelling
from the teleprompter
to make sure
we feel enough fear
to fall into joy
upon clinical description
of the wet work involved.

I’m looking at you
beat down by deceit
for so many years
you won’t believe a thing
till you can personally stick
your oft-betrayed fingers
in the bullet holes
and now you won’t get the chance
so you won’t believe anything,
anything at all.

And yes, I’m looking at him —
first surprised, then not at all,
then blind and deaf and
dead.  See him slid into
a body bag, his skin scraped,
see it all slide into the sea,
his body breaking surface
and sinking into a singularity
that will suck us in for a long time
yet.

I end up looking at myself
in a tall, tall mirror.

I’m wondering if I
look much as I did
ten years ago.  I can’t imagine
I do.  I take in all
that’s being said, and
it feels like shrapnel’s
remodeling me.

I don’t know how not to believe
in karma, but I try
by seeking to know all
the names of God, for I know
you can only expect God to answer
if you say them all at once.
I don’t know how to do that. When I try,
it just comes out
as the scream of a hyena.