by David Southward
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| From left, Judge Bruce Schroeder, Kyle Rittenhouse and defense attorney Mark Richards watch a video Nov. 12 during Rittenhouse’s homicide trial in Kenosha, Wis. (Mark Hertzberg/Pool/AP via The Washington Post) |
I don’t wish death
or solitary confinement
or even the hell
of half a life wasted
behind bars. No:
I want him to be stricken
with disgust—at the blood
he’s spilled, at the horror
of his rash heroics. I want God
to part the clouds of his mind
and set afire
its nest of fear and folly.
I want the clearing smoke
to open his eyes
to true manhood: the facing down
of an enemy hiding
within—the answering
of a people’s need
for sobriety, not messiah.
I want him to rise
above the buzzfed grapevines,
the twitter of rumor
and rumble of propagandas
and remember history:
to become his republic’s
most disarming
spokesman. I want him
to march and preach
civility—to be Prince Hal
to a nation of Hotspurs,
to become (in the unpredictable
flowerings of time)
our next King
of change.
David Southward teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of Apocrypha (Wipf & Stock 2018) and Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020).