is one of those games that people
delight in playing. They squeal
when it’s pulled off the shelf.

A game about which people say,
“It’s just fun. It doesn’t matter 
who wins.” They smile, 

such happy cutthroats,
playing pickpockets at a medieval 
festival. It’s just fun.

and how the clueless smiles add
to the joy. No one could possibly
mistake this for a true battle.

Then again, I don’t squeal
or smile much on my good days
so it always feels like it’s our blood

in the offing for some of us — 
those seated at the game board
with no pockets to pick, no blades to swing.

I saw the edge of my world 
in the face of a border-trapped child
on a screen, and shut it off at once.

Someone’s going to blame me
for doing nothing,
for turning away. I feel the same

or at least I used to
until the images
became so familiar

I could tell at once they were not current,
that the borders in question
were not my own, the child 

in the scene died in a camp
or on a reserve decades before my birth
and I needn’t care anymore as they were

beyond my sympathy. I am beyond
my sympathy now, for that matter.
I admit I’m garbage who happens to be

alive in the now
on the right side
of the barbed wire fences. What a time

to be alive, in fact: the powerful
have made it easy to deny such hungry eyes
the courtesy of simply looking back.

It’s not real, I tell myself. It’s deepfake,
photoshop, propaganda. The sound
of the rumbling gut, the stare — all 

pulled from history, remade
for today’s eyes. It’s not as if
nothing ever changes

on that side of the barbed wire.  That kid
will be alright and pain free one way
or another, one day, no matter how I see them today.

Old song, “ Chimes Of Freedom,”
playing. I’m sleepy. I don’t want
such bells to wake me. I sit here
and pretend this is not happening. 

Someone laughs at what’s happening.
Someone else wrings their hands about it.
I’m annoyed by both, but I’ve been
too comfortable to move away. None of this

should be happening, not where I’m
trying to sleep. The music and the 
sneering and the earnest exhortations.
How dare they keep me awake? 

Old song, “Which Side Are You On?”
playing now.  I’m still sleepy,
annoyed, uncomfortable. 
Someone’s getting hurt if this continues.

The songs are old news, but still news.
This keeps happening, 
and even when people get hurt
people like me stay sleepy. 

Old song, “Rock-A-Bye Baby,”
playing now. I’m sleepy again,
even in my discomfort. I’d rather
not be awake but it keeps happening.

That flag is
an optical illusion,
more or less.

That it waves at you,
that it is friendly
toward you,

that it
covers you
with great sincerity;

that it is made
of colorfast
and quick dry fabric

to cover the coffins of
its chosen heroes 
with what looks like honor 

from here. Getting closer
is frowned upon and you will never
be one of their heroes if you do.

It’s just easier
to stand back
and admire it from afar.

This empty lot is called
Mexican Corner.
No one’s really sure why.

The name doesn’t show
on any map. Only the locals
say it. They all say it.

Corner of Elm
and Main. Used to be
a house here

but the brick-crumb
ground that was beneath
is all that’s left. A little scorched,

concrete dusted.
A messy spot on the edge
of what used to be downtown. 

Maybe there was a Mexican
there once? Living there,
happy there? There’s not one there

now, nor is there one
for miles around. All we’ve got
is the name, the earth

soiled with erasure,
and a lot of folks who shrug
when asked about history. 

This room you are in
was intentionally built
as a circle on a turntable
with walls too high
to see what else is out there

so you barely bother to try and see
if they told you the truth,
since they have told you
for your whole life
that this room you are in
is the envy of the world;

it’s so dangerous out there;
everybody wants in
and here you are, allegedly
safe, clinging with your back
to the wall. 

Whether you believe the danger
will break in from the right or the left
you will act the fool 
running the other way
but you cannot run
on a swirling floor and you will
fall to the center. There’s a whole heap of people
just like you down there 
in the middle, clawing to get back
to the walls that are growing higher 
by the minute.

You suddenly realize
you are in a vessel being shaped
on a potter’s wheel.
Hands somewhere are doing the work
of raising the walls as you spin.
The opening at the top narrows
and less and less light enters.

You are hoping to live through 
the firing to come
long enough to see the flowers
this was made to hold
when you realize that if you do
get that far, with those flowers
will come your drowning
as you were never meant to be
anything but food
to sustain someone else’s beauty.

Start 
pointing fingers

Stop saying
how is this is happening here

Start saying 
this is being done here

Stop saying
this is being done here

Start saying
they are doing this here

Start
pointing fingers

directly
at those who do

Start recalling
this is not the first time

Stop saying
how is this is happening here

Start saying 
for some this is how it’s always been

Stop
wringing your hands

Stop pretending any of this
is new or out of character

Stop 
gesturing at old paper

Start
reading old paper

Start
pointing at old paper

Stop
saying “But…but…” when you do

Start
pointing fingers

Stop
ignoring your mirror

It’s a neighbor with a bad car
parked on the street
without plates, the cops
hovering around then having it towed.
It’s the couple screaming at 
each other on the sidewalk and 
one of them tears a rock out of your wall, 
raising it overhead, and now
it’s your concern. Did they screw up
the succulents that grow there,
the hen and chicks? You yell down from
the bedroom window to put it back.
That breaks the anger spell.
They leave after tossing the rock
onto the top of the wall.
You will replace it later
now that all is well and after
the tow truck leaves with the bad car?
It’s almost as suburban out here as it is back home
where high school friends live who say
“the city is a cesspool” and trot around
boastfully shaking their heads at me 
from their beautiful yards 
where the hen and chicks grow from holes
artfully cut into the sides of barrels 
transformed into planters they bought
at the hardware store down the street
from the place where that guy 
stabbed another guy in the back of the head
at a lazy evening barbecue a couple of years ago,
an isolated incident among isolated people,
insulated people who choose to turn away. 
To those high school friends I say:
welcome to the cesspool
where I see my shit and name it
while you hide yours.
In the longest of long runs
it all smells the same. 
It all spills out eventually
just like those tough little plants do when they 
bloom, long translucent stems and flowers
drooping out of barrel holes and stonewall cracks,
trying to make the best
of wherever they find themselves.