i love you more than the law will let me, 1
The hands reinforcing the barricade mean I love you.
The shoulders pressed against the hard surface, weight leaning
forward over the bent knees, strained ankles, the pressure
on the balls of the feet—a cluster of heels defying the slide
of the pavement means I love you. My mask, every mask means
I love you, I love you. The linked arms, the stranger’s hand on your back
shoulder, the synchronicity means I don’t know you but I love you.
The refusal to abandon, to point, to name, to isolate, means I don’t
know you but I love you, too. The agility means I love you.
The discipline means I love you, too. The burned-out gas station
means I love you. The burned down police station means I told you
I love you, too. The burned down ROTC building means I also love them
as much as I love you. The thrown bricks and broken buildings mean nothing
unless they might freely house you. The looted grocery stores mean nothing unless
they might freely feed you. The blocked highway, the choked bridge, the clogged
roadway tunnel means I love you more than this. The seized airport,
the seized hospital, the seized lobby, the seized intersection,
the seized campus building means I love you more
than all of this, too. The plundered weapons factory, the sunk
ship of plane parts, the death-making born as good union jobs,
born as healthcare and a pension and raised instead to ruin and maim, to desecrate
and massacre—the plundered weapons factory, the sunk ship of plane parts,
the death-making deliberately unmade
means I love you. The unmaking
means I love you, too.
i love you more than the law will let me, 2
Okay but, how did you get dressed today?
How did you sleeve-and-sleeve your shirt
and press your face through the fabric and out
into the day? What gravity pulled your ankles
through the hollow of each pant leg? What grace
lifted the material up over your thighs to settle
at your waist? The zip and buckle of your wrists,
the fold and crease of study, the flutter and monotony
of faith—how? How did you do the day today?
I’ve been gutted by the thieves and the charlatans,
by the blazing shame and the tenderness
of my own heart. Comrade, I’m feeling
tender and raw with grief, emptied
by the sheer cruelty of our panicked flailing.
My knuckles are bloodied. My anger is so loud
that sense has left me, surely. I know the name
for this, the term for that decay, but my mouth
is so rich with rage I cannot articulate
beyond the gnashing, beyond spitting my teeth
like pellets. I cannot make a single letter take shape
on my tongue. How? How did you do the day today?
Teach me how to zip and buckle
while I cry. Teach me to sleeve-and-sleeve
while I bite, blurry-eyed against the burn.
Teach me to thicker skin, to steady and to stay.
God, please teach us to stay and struggle. Teach me
to welcome the cry, blurry-eyed against the burn,
to let the body force the poison gas out
with the water of its own grief. Teach us to prepare
for every poison. Teach us to thicker skin against compromise,
against the scapegoat, against the spectacle. Teach us
to remember. Teach us to take for each other,
to take together, and to stay—remind me:
the shoulder pressed, the bent knee, the barricade.
