by Cecil Morris
On last night’s news, the demonstrations
of officers with their newest “tool”:
the electric shock glove, a low-voltage stunner
that makes their pretend “criminals” drop
to their knees, agonized. They promise that,
this “tool” will cause no permanent harm,
will not leave a mark, and I think about
the old beatings—Jim Crow days—that left
no marks, about unsworn officers of abuse
with the shock gloves to keep their wives—
or husbands—or kids or dogs in line,
about encouraging compliance with
velvet gloves. I think about poor Midas
and his golden touch, about that episode
of Cheers when know-it-all postman Cliff
in avoidance therapy begins to shock
himself. I think of just desserts,
of what goes around comes around,
of ICE officers shocking each other
or themselves by accident
or having to don shock-proof rubber sleeves,
maybe whole wet suits as prophylactics,
the newest body armor by Body Glove,
and non-compliant protesters dressed
like frogmen, too.
Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025. His second collection, Daughter Lost and Found and Lost, will come out from Kelsay Books in 2027. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.