I am writing you this poem
while the glaciers melt in the corner of our eyes
the sea-level rising outside our window
the flood eating an entire village
a wildfire consuming hills up to the edge of this page
I am writing you this poem
amid the savage shootings three four five ten children fall
under the table another ten trembling like puppies gnawing on fear
the Second Amendment stacking deaths in schoolyards
I am writing you this poem
on sidewalks
with their electric tasers billy-clubs pistols aimed at our faces
the police digging their blows in our bones as we gasp for air
behind bars with false allegations stamped on our names
behind the rifled fence that divides the North and the South
on the other side of the White Wall the cowboys built
in detention centers and in immigration courts
on mattresses of scabies and lice and on cold floors of urine
children bathing in sinks
I am writing you this poem
with buffoons and murderers in office
with tyrants and terrorists in fine suits
with billionaires sucking our blood dry
with corporations cutting the final tree
I am writing you this poem
in blind glass buildings and in scorching factories and in prison warehouses
the surveillance camera watching every step
of our one-minute toilet break
beneath the knife of economics
after the banks auction our last possession: our breath
I am writing you this poem
against the cynicism of the powerful
the narcissism of the screen
the brutality of the law
the hypocrisy of politics
from the city standing on waste
from the countryside stooped in abandon
in the square where the uproar of conscience is surrounded by police cars
in a corner where a man lies down to fill his lungs with the night sky
I am writing you this poem
among the homeless the dispossessed the beggars the undocumented
the immigrant the uprooted the beaten the cheated the failure the oppressed the rebels
in the tight embrace of families friends lovers strangers
of the dead who wrote the phosphorous trail of love and resistance
of the unborn who will sing the unwritten song of our hands
I am writing you this poem
now
just now when another forest is burned
a boat capsizes in the Mediterranean sea
a soldier shoots another man behind his back
a mother is deported
a father is crossing the border
a girl hangs herself because she wasn’t liked enough
I am writing you this poem
in my sweet mother tongue
in accent rejoicing in otherness
in a language which tastes of salt and honey
with a voice which aches with ancestral memory
from my lips to yours
I am writing you this poem
in the immense darkness of the present
where no one is watching no one is listening
but two faceless lovers tracing each other’s hairline of hope
the moon rising from the trenches of defeats
again and again
despite all this madness
a child opens the window
a few fugitive stars stop over the bridge
somewhere
beneath the open sky of his defiant heart
I am writing you this poem
