by Devon Balwit
every day we benefit from neutrality /
bodies that say nothing but what we want
them to say // presumed-innocent bodies
that needn’t explain their presence in this
or that neighborhood // bodies that enter
stores and offices without special scrutiny //
bodies allowed to be angry / to be loud /
even for no good reason // bodies able
to vacation from history / free
from the need to serve as ambassadors /
to translate / to assuage hurt feelings //
bodies that can forget themselves
for as long as they want / even forever //
bodies so innocuous they are shocked
to find themselves targeted / with hands
that never tremble on the steering wheel.
Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.
