POETRY
Vitamins and Wine
In training,
I would lay awake counting the sirens that howled down the streets
Harbingers of the night to come — busy with popped guts and dead legs and
spontaneous pneumothorax.
Tonight the sirens are as frequent, if not more,
Akin to the early days of COVID, when
people piled into the ERs,
mountains of waiting, fear, and sorrow.
Helicopters circle constantly, capturing the chaos
Policemen barricade the city blocks
Peaceful protesters mount a resistance:
to death, to fear, to sorrow.
What city are we in? New York, Minneapolis, Hong Kong?
Beijing in 1989? Chicago in 1968? We are lost
Transmuted in timeless rituals of riot and unrest
Unable to transcend —
I stand with #BlackLivesMatter. I stand with Hong Kong. As a writer, I am profoundly at a loss for words. This past week has been relentless and I am still trying to make sense of it. Still trying to find a way to say something that will fix everything. I cannot. As we all process these events in the coming days, weeks, months, all I can ask is that we find the humanity in ourselves to help each other through this impossible time.
