by David Radavich
Sometimes metaphors are
too perfect for words:
Police in riot gear
standing in a school hallway
in Uvalde, Texas
doing nothing
for 77 minutes,
strolling, phoning,
reaching for hand sanitizer
while inside the classroom
the crazed gunman
mows down
one child after another
two teachers
air burning
with smoke and blood
and screams
only ending
when death explodes
or oozes out.
This is America in 2022:
Immobilized. Imprisoned
in a trap of power.
Lost in the hallways
of moral evasion.
We can’t address
racial justice
or climate change,
enforced poverty
or violent inhumanity.
We are the cops
standing around
checking our phones
doing nothing
to save our children
to guarantee our future.
Look in this frame
and see
what we’ve become.
Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In. His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.
