And then, we get a little more political.
And this next poem has to do with the middle of the country
where people feel they are being ignored.
And that harms them.
And it's still the case.
Demonstration in plague time.
They call their region the flyover states, states of trash,
cockroaches, disposals.
Today they are demonstrating against vaccination.
It's all about anger, isn't it?
Anger and hurt beneath it.
The disrespect.
The disrespect hurts like anything.
Halo of piquant mosquitoes humming.
They are dying of the rank, disrespect, dying of disease,
drink, and drugs, suicide.
If anyone has arms long enough to reach past the anger,
to embrace the hurt, that alligator in your belly,
that repetitive mockery.
If the magic of love exists anywhere.
Let us imagine a superhero president, pulling it out
of his sleeve, a rainbow scarf, a mitten
from the cedar chest of a painful childhood.
They say, that is what Jesus did.
Simply reached out to the hurt with arms like tree boughs.
Fingers like springtime petals.