Bread and Bread

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash What if it is wild, but not precious? A landfill of used needles void of the liquids that saved us and then didn't Wiping the butt of your loved one over and over, more times a day than anyone says I love you The floaters in your eyes hissing like snakes What if it is precious, but not wild? Sun on skin as you lay atop a nylon sleeping bag the summer that you, a baby counselor, learn that some children do, in fact, run into the woods at night, contrary to what you were promised— but at that moment it is not night,  and you have finally showered and closed your eyes and the kids are playing close by their words indistinguishable, but light What if there is not one, but many? All the do-overs The first days of sobriety The $20 bills rolled like a Taki in pockets The pages ripped from a diary The first days of the rest of our lives, plural

The evening that Anne Frank's words wash up on our lawn follows the blue internet day that shows me the map of a planned community  for Gaza, shaped like a gun, with complex industry spotting the belly of the barrel and a pink ridge of coastal tourism along the top. The Palestinians, who have not been consulted, had plans too: tomatoes, oranges, peppers. Olives and dates. Children and school. The nearly grown children at the school down the street from us protested ICE yesterday. One of them, probably, quoted Anne in thick purple marker:  Terrible things are happening At any time of the night + day Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes, families are being torn apart. 1943, 1984, 2023, 2026 merge into a dull twilight, and that night I dream that Gazans have 24 hours to choose between being sealed inside the plan or roaming free in rubble. Source: Al Jazeera The interior is a shiny mall packed like the Blackest Friday. Nearly grown children start bands, every...

Photo by Oksana Vasilieva on Unsplash A white tree in a California winter scarred with graffiti looks like a birch in the taiga which (I learned last year) is the part of Russia where no one can live, or no one wants to Look, I know nothing about Russia, but I'm learning how official stories are farcical  but enforced by the state's jagged metal teeth and people vanish in the snow Yesterday I learned the man who shaves goat meat off a vertical spit on the busiest corner in my neighborhood was taken by ICE His absence is the absence of smoke while I wait at a red light (Look, I know nothing) and, for his family, a vertical spit piercing their hearts Masha from Pussy Riot  charts a path through the snow for those of us who are learning: When they say you can't assemble send one activist at a time When you're locked up with your lover fuck her while you can Masha lives in Iceland now because bodies are not infinite but her love for the people of Russia is a steady global ...