A Poem for Your City
I heard someone carved the president's name into a manatee and I know you care for animals so. Someone also shattered the glass that held your love and everything else is only desired.
How is your city? How are the hopes behind closed doors? A mob bashed them through, starting a battle, starting a new chapter in the textbook of history, often shared and less often learned.
I want to cry with you because we are animals too. Angry woke folks storm those doors, leaving a trail of cacophony that will echo in the bedrooms of our children. They’ll lead much different lives.
I love your city. I love the life it brings. I love the love haters hate. I want to hold it tight like I am holding you. I know it weeps just like you weep. Let the tears fall with the blood and dry with the hand.
Cameramen have many angles but they can’t capture this one: me, holding you holding your city; and there is nothing more in this moment, only to hold the pain and rejoice in love, in the healing of this land, that will be scarred until all the books are withered away.
Jesse M. Gonzalez 2021
