by Ron Riekki
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AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
and she’s in a burkini swimsuit, hijab, with
a Rage Against the Machine-style hat/visor,
and we’re trying to relax, but we talk about
war, and when the tariffs started, I said, then,
We’re going to war. She asked what I meant,
and I said, This is isolationism. He doesn’t
want us dealing with other countries, because
the more we can supply everything on our
own, the more we’re setting up war economy.
And then time went by and we’re on a river,
and I’d said we’d go to war at the end of
his presidency, because going to war will
increase the odds we stick with the same
political party, the war party. But she says,
No, I don’t think he’s going to wait. I think
he’ll go to war soon. We disagreed. She’s
from Iraq. She sensed it. She told me her
PTSD is so strong, her hypervigilance is so
extreme that she reads rooms, feels when
there’s tension. But it’s the same with our
world with her, how she can sense a war
coming, told me about the attacks on Iran
before the attacks on Iran. And we’re on
a river. And we’re floating. Inner tubes.
Trying to relax. But we talk about wars.
She says, I’d like to speak out and say every-
thing I think about what’s going on, but I can’t.
I ask why. Because, she says, They’d kill me.
I ask who would. She lowers her voice.
We’re on a river. We’re trying to relax.
It’s 106 degrees. What are we doing to
the earth? What are we doing to each
other? She whispers. She tells me her
fears. I tell her she needs to write it in
a poem, in nonfiction. I can’t, she says.
Then in fiction, I tell her. I can’t, she says,
They’d kill me. We talk about Malala
Yousafzai. We talk about the hijab, how
she loves to put it on, makes her feel
closer to Allah. We talk about the view,
stunning, the shimmering on the water,
hypnotic. We talk about the awe sounds
in God and Buddha and Yahweh and
Allah. And even in her name. A name
that is tied to God. And we float and
we talk about war. Surviving. The heat.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.
