National Poetry Month, Day #19

Live and Let DEI

A banned words poem

Mural on Building somewhere in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Photo by Author

They told us
not to say ‘undervalued’ —
as if the word itself
were more dangerous than the systems
that made people so.

They warned against ‘entitlement,’
but not the kind
that wears a suit,
or walks into boardrooms
already forgiven.

They shunned ‘diversity,’
like it was a contagion,
not the source of every
scientific breakthrough,
every movement
that ever changed the world.

They erased ‘minorities’
from the margins
and then the text —
but never the truth,
never the bodies
still standing, still rising.

They refused to name the fetus
unless it fit the narrative,
but silenced the mother
and all her context,
her choice,
her humanity.