[trigger warning: this poem includes graphic references to child and sexual abuse]
This is us:
We are the pillaging executives
who bulldoze great trees
to make room for strip mines
and strip malls.
We are the insidious lover
who fakes brain cancer
and insists
his other girlfriend
is his roommate.
We are the depraved mother
who masturbates
as five men violate and dismember
her 8-year-old daughter.
We are the feeble coward
who lies under oath
when he vowed to defend
and speak true.
We are the sadistic father
who denies his son shoes
and tries to beat the autism
out of him.
We are the shattered woman
who hangs herself from the banyan tree
unable to bear her prickled shame
and sticky grief.
This is also us:
We are the empathic strangers
who abandon cars and sandy blankets
to rescue the floundering sea turtle.
We are the delighted baby
who giggles, eyes agape
at her first touch of fur.
We are the giddy nerds
who brave hours of
pre-dawn November chill
to watch 10,000 cranes
take flight.
We are the two heroic bystanders
who interrupt the rapist
behind the dumpster
and sob at the sight
of his victim.
We are the smitten lover
who revels and roots
in the gaze of their beloved.
We are every righteous black man
on that Montgomery riverboat dock
on August 5th.
We are the committed dancer
who tests their body
every day for ten years
to make astounding shapes
that leave us breathless.
What if
it’s not humanity that’s corrupt and defiled?
What if
it’s modernity?
This blip called civilization?
These naïve, young, staccato stories we tell?
These histories we believe
that leave most of it
out?
All species
become desperate and murderous
when away from home too long,
when abducted from their natural habitat
and caged.
So do we.
Other species
coordinate, communicate
learn, play, solve, love
sacrifice, thrive
and mourn their dead.
So can we.
© S. Rinderle, December 2023
Image source: foodbunker.co.uk
