In Xinjiang, 7,000-miles
away, a morning sun, reflecting off the
glasses of early risers, the windshields
of commuters, is so bright as to redact
last night’s graffiti: Down with Xi.
At last I’m free to visit Church today;
What State dare silence this ecstatic hymn?
Hallelujah, O Lord, how oft we pray
to be free—and now we’re free! Yet we brim
I try on a suit to look handsome for the moon
ask the mirror what I’ve gained and what I’ve lost.
I mourn the death of those yet to die,
seek an urn to hold the ashes of what might have been.
Even the dead weep for our isolation;
in the pit of night, I dream of you at my
side, bleary-eyed, maskless. We stare
out the same window at the same desolation.
Is it too late for things that hope to grow?
What does it say that the sapling’s leaves
have already turned?
Here we reward the worst crimes with a cushy job
at a White Shoe law firm that does pro bono work
for the ACLU.
If life is a lucid dream or some near-perfect
computer simulation, do I risk waking up
to a world in which I can’t embrace you?
While the Enola Gay circled overhead, I gained weight,
and obsessed over coverage of its flight: Would we be spared,
or perish? What orders have been given, and who or
what will the pilot obey? We paid for the plane and…
Humanity risks extinction because
we love the wrong things too much.
I am under no illusions. To love you is
to resist oblivion, to laugh at craters.
We knew these would be hard years; at least we can laugh,
say I love you, watch for the flags at half-staff.