This Time
As I watch the results trickle in,
slowly drowning the hope
I had dared to nurture,
I am restless. I can't
sit, can't read, can't
face my children.
I step outside,
walk to the mailbox.
Still empty.
I pace to the backyard
to meet our new chickens.
My wife picked them up today,
two russet pullets, sixteen weeks old,
not yet laying. When they hear
my footsteps they coo, and when
I appear outside the chicken wire window,
they turn their heads,
fixing me with their flat,
inscrutable gaze.
I set to work on the chicken fence,
determined to make it right this time.
These ones will be contained,
not roosting in the shrubs and
the feijoa tree and the manuka
like the last pair.
This time, I will make it right,
though it is the same plastic fence
with nylon mesh and flimsy posts.
Like so much these days,
it was not made to last.
But I dutifully re-lay the fence,
pound in each post, peg the bottom
of the netting to the ground so they
can't push under, pull the top
of the netting taut on each post until
the flimsy plastic bends
under the strain like a palm tree
in a hurricane.
When the day finally fails
and reveals Venus
glowing over the hills in
the sun’s wake, I retreat
inside to figure out
what I can possibly do next
while the world falls
from possibility.
The last time, he was six.
I remember watching him
read with that insatiable
hunger for words,
for more. Always more.
I remember watching him read,
gulping down words,
a blue whale through a cloud of krill.
I remember watching him read
while that indescribable pit
of fear
and anger
and deep devastation
churned in my gut.
I remember watching him read,
sitting in bed,
consumed by his book,
oblivious to my presence,
as the stubborn tears finally spilled
down my cheeks.
I wanted to say I'm sorry.
I wanted to say I'm scared.
I wanted to say I don't know
what to do.
I wanted to say it will be alright.
I wanted to believe it.
But he was six, and what
did he know of demagogues
and democracy? So I let him
read some more
until the tears dried
and he finished the chapter,
then I kissed him on the forehead
and turned out the light.
This time feels different.
This time the shock is less.
This time we had less hope.
This time we had learned
to have less faith
in others,
in Americans,
in humanity.
This time confirmed
what I had suspected
but couldn't bring myself to believe
last time.
This isn't an aberration.
This isn't a fluke.
This is America.
This may be the end
of America.
But if it is not,
if the country
I used to call home
is to survive this,
it must work through this convulsion,
this revulsion.
The one thought,
the one idea
I am holding onto tonight
is this:
The only way out is through.
This time, he is fourteen.
This time, he is aware of politics.
This time, he reads the newspaper
at breakfast and asks
about wars and laws and
other terrors. This time,
he can understand, at least
as much as any of us can.
But I don't say a word.
I can't say a word.
The grief is too great.
I do not dare draw him in
to my despair.
There is no way to atone,
to repair,
to make right
what America has done today,
what they have done to our future,
to his future.
America is sick.
Humanity is sick.
Inflamed.
Pyrexial.
The fever is rising,
the world shakes with rigors,
convulsions rack the globe.
We cannot cure this disease.
All we can do is wait
it out and hope
the fever breaks
before it consumes us.
The only way
out is through,
but I fear
for the damage
that passage
will bring.
When he was small,
all I had to do
to make things right was
to hold him
close, lay his head
on my shoulder, quiet
my breathing, and move
our bodies
together.
The only way out
is through,
and the only way through
is together.
I dare not lean down
and kiss him on the forehead
for fear that the well of
grief inside me will pour
out onto his scruffy face.
I rub his back, stroke his cheek,
brush the hair from his eyes
and tuck it behind his ear.
Then I say,
in the steadiest voice
I can muster:
Goodnight.
I love you.
And I gently close the door behind me.
