"In which the author continues to struggle with Blogger's WYSIWYG formatting after numerous revisions."
Letter to the Senator
For the Bear
You say,
“Family
is the best
social institution
there is.”
And then
you send
them away.
The mothers.
Or the fathers.
Or their last hope
for normalcy.
Send them back
from borders.
Stick them in
a jail.
Cut our siblings
in half.
You keep only
the parts you want.
“Back!” you
say. You are
not wanted here,
worker.
You say,
“I believe
in family.”
And then
you fire
their counselors.
Their social workers.
Their therapists.
Their teachers.
Your hands
are sticky with
the last bit
of surgical tape
that helped
to hold them
together.
Oh sorry.
You don’t
“fire.” You
make “program
cuts.” “Deficit
Reduction Acts.”
You think
there’s a difference.
You say,
“Family comes
first for me.”
But your mother
rots in an old
folks’ home.
My mother
starves on your
subsidy. Her check
masking taped
to the fridge.
I choke
on your rhetoric.
You say,“Family
is the most
important
thing.”
And you revoke
rights to form
family.
Because you
don’t like
who they choose.
You duct tape even
others, one
to another,
stick them together.
Bind them
in unions
you say
are the “right”
kind of family.
You say,
“I work
for your family.”
But you seal
our kids
from the inside.
Keep them out
of college.
Or you let them in
but lend their
lives away. Write
contracts in your
own language.
Sell our children
to the best
of your bidders.
You Scotch tape
your flyers
to bulletin boards.
You brandish
our education
as evil. Tell
us what we
should learn.
You write reports
to prove your
righteousness.
“I’m protecting
YOUR children!”
you say.
But business
is always okay.
And you send
our children
off to war. You
fly our husbands
off to die. You
ship our mothers
to swelter in sand,
tape packs
to their backs
until they're pressed
into prunes.
In combat.
For capital.
In lands
not ready
for change. “They
are heroes!” you
say.
And they
are. But you
are something
other.
We want
our children,
Senator. We
all have
a parent somewhere.
Not one of us
gets here alone.
You red-tape our hands
separately,
try to divide
our homes,
silence our clamor
with the sound of
your sameness.
You cotton
our mouths
the best you
can
with your pomp
and presumptions,
your hardened
sight, your blinding
words. But we
have set our
teeth in stone.
We are prepared
for our own
strong words.
We fix our eyes
on ourselves.
Not your
fraudulent photo.
We stopped
reading your
bios long ago.
We set our ears
to our own
channels.
We own our
own airways.
We play our tapes
that only sound
the rumbling song
of justice.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt
Draft 7
September 18, 2007
