Force Visibility

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 whir

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.