WEBVTT

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And I'm from
Minneapolis, Minnesota,

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which has been in the
news headlines for all

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the wrong reasons
this last year.

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So this is a poem about
our ICE occupation

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that happened in February.

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It is dedicated to everyone in
our Twin Cities community who

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really stood up and
stood together to say,

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this will not happen
on our land anymore.

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Get out.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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Woo!

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Yes.

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[LAUGHS]

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It doesn't have a title yet,
but it starts like this.

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"Today, I am woke Instacart.

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I back my Mazda up to the
locked doors of La Vaquita.

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Quick load, easy out, boxes
of formula masa and a Rosca de

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Reyes cake,

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Tricking my car's
sensors into believing I

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carry unseatbelted passengers.

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I will not compare these
rattling plastic bags to ghosts.

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I will not privilege fear.

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The wind will not blow this
cake from the roof of my car,

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And I will not allow
any orange to escape,

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And wallow in some
hateful pothole,

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Glistening with
ice, mud, and glass.

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All over the city, we cross
slick berms with full arms.

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We memorize emergency contacts,
fidget the plastic whistle,

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Praise our
hypervigilance at night,

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then curse it early morning.

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My mom tells me some people
write these addresses down

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on toilet paper,

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Then swallow them if
ICE pulls them over.

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But I just write down
turn by turn instructions

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in a small notebook,

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So I can put my phone
on airplane mode,

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For whatever small
safety that grants us.

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Because I cannot be
followed back to La Vaquita,

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Where a round of tamales
for volunteers are steaming,

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Where Paloma handwrites grocery
orders in a hot pink composition

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notebook,

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And where abuelas
shopping for essentials

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Are ushered into the store
by freshly minted bodyguards,

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Skipping their jobs in data
entry or project management,

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Or sales, plumbing,
grant writing.

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Back to the market
for my second room,

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I tell Paloma I will be
back for that Labubu piñata

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For my housewarming
party at the stucco house

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I intend to buy a
few blocks from where

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Renee Good was murdered,

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Where lampposts are stapled
and ribboned into memorials

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For kidnapped neighbors,
mostly children.

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I can't imagine what
you're going through,

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my mother-in-law says,

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While I sit here in
lily white Bloomington.

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But I have been so
near to her condo,

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Delivering that Three Kings
cake to a construction company

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Near the Dairy
Queen headquarters.

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I have fidgeted for too long
at the doors of Southgate.

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Over pizza, we
tell her how school

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buses full of supplies and food

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Buffalo around my
spouse's workplace,

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Where Somali and
Hmong and Spanish

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are spoken with more
frequency than English.

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Hours later, after my North
Minneapolis deliveries,

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Julio Sosa-Celis is shot
in the leg on 24th Street,

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And I wonder if I
touched his hands

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passing the box of formula,

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Or if I passed an unmarked
SUV on the way there.

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I kiss my date
over the duffel bag

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Of first aid supplies
she loads into my car,

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Warns me I might be Stingray
if I park at her house

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for too long.

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I wonder if I'm being tracked
into the Mall of America parking

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lot,

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By Coresight, an Israeli
AI security system,

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Or the guards trained by a
former member of the IDF,

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As I drive a love to make out on
the Hawaii floor on their lunch

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break.

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I want to believe we bless
this dirt beneath concrete

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with our sweat

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But neighbors are near whose
pleasures have been confiscated,

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Who shiver in hydraulic
chambers of breath

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Near Fort Snelling, near Bdote.

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It is a hell of a time to
ramp up my polyamorous life.

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I debate my risk tolerance
for catfishing off-duty agents

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And abandon them in a cornfield
or some yet dug bottomless pit.

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But my risk tolerance is low.

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Detention and data
centers proposed along

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corridors of MMIW billboards.

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Is it safe to take my poetry
students to the conservatory,

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To the art museum?

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Frantically calling
my mom in Duluth

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To see if she has a
state or tribal ID.

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She tells me about the
time border control

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Harassed her brown skin
when she was unhoused.

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Asshole, she hisses,

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Did your SNAP come
through, I ask,

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My muscles aching with the
weight of so many tortillas.

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Don't worry about me, she says.

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If they haven't killed me yet,

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I can survive anything.

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To be homeless on your own land,

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Then told you do
not belong here,

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This isn't new.

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History falls through us,

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Or we fall through history.

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Our heaving bodies,

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Your pleasure, my pleasure,

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Your pain, my pain,

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If only we are
open to receive it.

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Maybe while I still steer
the direction of this body

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I am trying to hold as
many people as I can."

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Miigwech.

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[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

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