Everywhere we went, I went
in pigtails
no one could see—
ribbon curled
by a scissor’s sharp edge,
the bumping our cars
undertook when hitting
those strips
along the interstate
meant to shake us
awake. Everywhere we went
horses bucking
their riders off,
holstered pistols
or two Frenchies
dancing in black and white
in a torn apart
living room
on the big screen
our polite cow faces
lit softly
by New Wave Cinema
I will never
get into. The soft whirr
of continuous strip imagery.
What is fascism?
A student asked me
and can you believe
I couldn’t remember
the definition?
The sonnet,
I said.
I could’ve said this:
our sanctioned twoness.
My covert pigtails.
Driving to the cinema
you were yelling
This is not
yelling you corrected
in the car, a tiny
amphitheater. I will
resolve this I thought
and through that
resolution, I will be
a stronger compatriot.
This is fascism.
Dinner party
by dinner party,
waltz by waltz,
weddings ringed
by admirers, by old
couples who will rise
to touch each other
publicly.
In intertheater traffic
you were yelling
and beside us, briefly
a sheriff’s retrofitted bus.
Full or empty
was impossible to see.
