After Lisa Low’s “People Who Look Like You”
He wasn’t a bad man
But there wasn’t a lot of good In him
we spent hours wandering
making phone calls and chasing down cars
our bare feet thudding against the freshly paved streets
My feet were scalded, hot and blisterd
the color of his face after he got done screaming
scarlet and angry
He always told me
the minute we are born we start dying
there was no outrunning it
We couldn’t make back room deals or place bets or pay off death
Money meant nothing
He told me we were better off broke
I pretended to listen
another drunken man rambling
Telling me how life is and how I just don’t understand
I said nothing
he didn’t understand I didn’t fear the certainty of death
what scared me was the life that came before it
Mama loved her frogs,
they sat upon every shelf,
with green watchful eyes.
When the fighting came,
she hid them in the attic,
one by one in quiet.
When she left for good,
the house sifted through the dust.
All the frogs went too.
Check this box if you’re human.
Select all the images with cars,
stairs,
bicycles,
traffic lights.
<Determine where the boundaries are within the grid>
Check this box if you’re not a robot/
not AI/
not fake.
<Identify recognizable pieces of the human world arranged in boxes>
Figure out how much of each one
counts as whole.
Check this box if you have a brain,
(and you use it)
Test it with these ordinary items
and choose the correct ones—
only the ones with big enough parts
contained in each space
[decide what that means].
Check this box if you feel pain,
if you are hurt by this world
Select _all_ the things harming you.
Choose carefully.
I am buried alive in the ancient ruins
Of these Divided States of America
Entombed underneath 922 pages
Of political socioeconomic racial savagery
Project 2025
A conflagration fueled by corruption hate power greed
Spreads across the land of the opportunistic
Forms a storm of soot, ash, airborne embers
Targets the nation’s infrastructure
Redrawn district lines
Rupture community capillaries
Disabled veterans drown in medical debt
Once Medicaid is drained
Banned books tossed in an inferno
Lead to third degree brain burns
The annihilation of DEI causes a seismic quake
Destroys intellectual foundation
The steel pillars of government collapse cowering to the heat
Buried next to me in the rubble
Archeologists will find 77,303,569
Bodies without spines compassion courage
Clothed in faded red shirts white lettering
Voter sticker with red and white stripes pressed over the heart
My grandfather talked to God
Without you,
I. It isn’t safe to be myself–
II. Evidence Against:
Alexis,
Andy,
Annabel,
Ashley,
Bud,
Carina,
Cathy,
Deb,
Eli,
Fanny,
Geoff,
Grace,
Josh,
Jules,
Kevin,
Kyle,
Linda,
Lisa,
Liz,
Manny,
Mari,
Oliver,
Rachel,
Rebekah,
Sabrina,
Sammi,
Stephen,
Stevie,
Suz,
Veronica
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks, ca. 1483–85, oil on wood transferred to canvas
Virgins had knelt with children before
at the womb of the Earth
in such spiritual dialogue
with each other
Living forms speak of microcosms
of new life and of deaths to come
Uriel points to cycles of death
renewal in the macrocosm
outside the tomb
at the womb of the earth
before and again
