America, Great Once Again
       

Riot cops have slammed the woman with green streaks
in her dark hair onto the airport's marble floor.
I count eight from the posted video, whose eye peeks
blinking between protesters near a glass door.
She sobs, cries out, "Stop! You're hurting me!"
The eye moves to show a girl's head. She's ten,
I'd guess. Cornrows, hands over ears-that's all I see,
all I need to see, must always see—men
in body armor, one boot on the woman's back,
one on her neck, while others tie her wrists,
twisting them till she shrieks, her body slack
from writhing against what it resists.
The recorder, as her video blurs and ends,
whispers in her phone, We're so fucked, my friends.

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Copyright © 2018 Edward Harkness All rights reserved
from The Law of the Unforeseen
Pleasure Boat Studio
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission