by J.R. Solonche
Did the hand of the president tremble
as he signed the letters to the parents
of the twenty-two Americans killed?
Did the hand of the president tremble
as he signed the same lie twenty-two times?
Did the hand of the president tremble
each time he told the same lie to himself?
Did the hand of the president tremble
each time he willed to believe the same lie himself?
Did the hand of the president tremble
each time he imagined the parents
of the twenty-two Americans killed
as they read the letters he signed,
as they held them in hands that trembled,
as they believed the lie he told them,
as they believed the lie they have to believe,
the lie that their sons died for our freedom,
the lie the president signed that the twenty-two
died for our freedom, while the truth,
the truth is that they died, that the twenty-two
died, for our freedom only to ask if the hand
of the president trembled as he signed
the twenty-two letters, as he signed the twenty-two lies.
Oh, did the hand of the president tremble?
J.R. Solonche is co-author (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
___________________________________________