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Image: Robert Hass
This poem is featured in What Nature. Order a copy today.
(including a line by Tobias Meneley)
The fascists have entered the town
Sun like a late ripe peach
City says no
to masks
We go with the crows & the crowd
A defensive line is made
My telomeres all lined up
The State prepares the tear gas canisters
(almost wrote teenage canisters)
My pronoun is wearing a mask
A defensive line is made
We go with the G & the H
Poets are often tired
We don’t think the hitting will work
We grow calm among the zeroes
My house was a little too calm
Our telomeres all lined up
i’m too old to jump over walls
A terrible beauty is dead
& the sun was tender upon us
i don’t think the hitting will work
A defensive time is made
A poem is not a protest
The Nazis have entered the park
Subject to history’s impress
My telomeres all lined up—
Subject to cosmic rays
Aw Aw awe awe crows say
My house was a little too calm
Was thinking of Nicolás Guillén
Was thinking of William Blake
We go with the crows & the crowd
Hate hate hate hate free speech
i’m too old to jump over walls
A defensive line is made
Subject to history’s impress
i don’t think the hitting will work
Changed utterly wrote Yeats
Sun like a late ripe peace
The State unfolds the tear gas thermoses
We follow the crows Awe Aw
A defensive line is made
A defensive line is made
My house was a little too calm
A defensive line is made
i follow the crows & the qualm
repeat repeat repeat
Read other poems from What Nature here.
Brenda Hillman is Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary's College and author of Seasonal Work with Letters on Fire.
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