by Indran Amirthanayagam
Yes, I pray now to God, to Francis
whose name I took at Confirmation,
to the Pieta in whose lap I lie, to my
mother determined to bathe despite
her failing legs and fear of the night.
who recalls the pride with which
we were taught to reply to scissors
and knives of the outrageous
and bigoted, who say that we
do not belong on this side of
the river, on the red carpet,
in the ceremony of democracy.
We will not cede. We will not
be overcome. We will not
despair. We are going to keep
our seat despite the pandemic,
the supply chain hijacking,
the wild fires, because God
will observe the proceedings
once again—this my faith—
to keep us from falling off
the flat end of the other party's earth.
Indran Amirthanayagam produced a “world" record in 2020 by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He has just published Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube.