by Indran Amirthanayagam
 |
| Cartoon by Clay Jones |
This is State murder
even if unintended,
rammed wrong,
bullets fired
at a migrant
driving.
What safety does
a seatbelt provide,
or an airbag,
when you drive
below the speed limit
while a bullet
flies through
the window?
What safety
measures
are advised for
the migrant driving
on American roads?
To give way
to unmarked cars?
To stop
in the middle
of the road
and wait?
What allows
the plain-clothed
gunman to shoot
without asking
for papers,
or screaming
into a bullhorn?
What are
the circumstances
when witnesses
are hounded,
threatened
with deportation?
What if there are
no witnesses,
certainly no inconvenient
bodycam imagery?
We are confronted
by an extrajudicial
killing force.
They don’t leave
traces. They will
be protected.
THE STATE’S ALL, folks.
Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.