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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
It took a while for people to catch on.
One day the president’s press secretary
told a series of lies to reporters and the public
and went home that night to a punishing migraine.
It subsided in the morning,
but as soon as she spoke to the gaggle again
it returned in force
until she could hardly think at all.
The Secretary of Defense,
punching the air as he rattled off
bomb totals and strike capabilities
and how much damage the warfighters could do,
suddenly dislocated his shoulder so badly
they couldn’t get it back in the socket
and he wailed in pain as if hit by an RPG.
And then the president,
rambling between lies and attacks,
projecting his fears and failures,
his usual spew,
felt the right side of his jaw go slack,
his words slurring in his mouth,
his arm and leg so weak
he could not grip the podium,
and his eyes rolled back into his head.
It turned out this was bigger
than people with great power,
as if some outside force
had come to earth, or was already here.
What seemed at first like accidents
started happening everywhere:
The playground bully tripped
while chasing his prey
and broke his nose on the jungle gym.
Farmers who mistreated animals
were bitten by Lone Star ticks
and could no longer eat meat or cheeses
or even tend their animals.
For the person who stole the handicapped space,
three weeks on crutches.
Cut off that mom and kids on the highway?
You’ll be limping home dragging a muffler.
And rapists? Well, you can imagine
what happened to them.
Making the connection was the tricky part
for humans, not used to such obvious signs,
and they tried to swallow it
as mere coincidence.
Then one day, for various reasons,
two million people lost their voices,
five hundred thousand broke their hands
trying to strike someone, another million
came down with ailments and injuries
tied directly to their actions,
and soon it was all too much not to notice.
The outside power,
or whatever it was,
wasn’t kidding around.
Before you knew it, the crime rate went down,
landlords starting fixing their properties,
billionaires offered to pay their taxes,
and humans everywhere began inspecting
their actions for cruelty and meanness.
The so-called problem of evil
turned out to be one side
of an equation we could solve.
We just needed to be reminded.
Steve Straight’s books include Affirmation (Grayson Books, 2022), which won the 2023 William Meredith Award for Poetry, The Almanac (Curbstone/
