To My Brothers

(N.B.: SB 1070 in AZ was given the nod by both brothers in reference to state's rights; they are not racist, homophobic, or sexist - the politicians they support are.)

 

I will have to teach your son

that a starched blue uniform and polished silver badge

should never hold the power

to pull a man over

because his skin is the color of deserts.

His hands, like old leather —

creased by carrying his sons out of nightmares,

and worn, nursing his daughters through fevers, —

don’t smuggle their laboring wives into Arizona

to birth an anchor baby,

don’t make plots

against the twin towers of capitalism and commerce,

don’t hide opiates in a child’s shoes

to sell to a Columbia grad student.

I will have to teach your daughter

that a business suit, high definition make-up

and a flag pinned to a lapel

does not a patriot make.

She’ll know Daddy handed that man power,

but he holds none

over her growing body,

has no right to define

what love means to her,

can’t lock her in a cell

because she didn’t say no loud enough.

I should warn you, brothers,

I am prepared to drive your them across state lines

and sew my lips shut to keep their aborted secrets,

prepared to love them more than you,

ready to be the black sheep only mentioned at the drunken holiday tables,

because neither of you

hold a candle to your father.

He was a Times-worthy front page against the arms race,

demanded accountability from his government ten years before Obama entered Harvard Law,

ordered Congress to give our grandfather his due veteran’s rights,

and defended our mother’s right to choose at the age of 21.

He is still marching the streets in the name of peace -

our motherland is a warzone

and you are Helen Keller in an air raid,

with no sense to where the bombs are falling.

 

I need you to protect your children

like our father protected us,

so when they grow up

no one can arrest your dissenting daughter,

or bloody your precious son’s face for daring to sleep in Zucotti Park.

so no one can murder them

for standing outside a building,

voicing what you purposely blind yourselves to:

something is desperately wrong here.