by Danielle Alexich
guest contribution posted Nov. 6
I would give myself an A plus.
Nobody has done what I’ve been able to do.
–Donald Trump
Grade school mornings
we faced the flag,
hands over hearts,
pride of a nation pulsing inside us.
We compared report cards,
took cuts in line at recess,
played dodgeball in the thin Oakland fog.
Across town and on TV,
dark people got dragged away in handcuffs.
If we saw a drunk collapsed on the street,
we were told not to stare.
People dreamed of getting rich.
Years later, we heard about other countries.
Epidemics, famine, hospitals bombed.
Our kids pleaded for Happy Meals
while foreign children covered with flies
slumped in the dirt.
Thank God we lived in America.
Now, upset by massacres
where we learn, dance, shop and pray,
we face our flat screens,
flip through channels,
and recall a man with jutted chin
shouting to the cheering crowd.
I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue
and shoot somebody
and I wouldn’t lose voters.