I exit my small-town bank / a maga hat in my periphery / common as a cardinal / if I had a nickel / I’d go right back inside the bank / that’s what
distant red hat / setting sun / horizon of chalked-up sidewalk / invisible drawings / of the hopscotch game we play outlining the rules we fulfill to stay / within the lines of our neighbor’s / expectations lest we start a riot / with our privileged tongues / mine twists itself into knots / in order to stay silent / disappoints my younger self / inner activist retired early / by all appearances / you see
those with my skin color get to say / this doesn’t concern me / get to feign outrage / at the gas pump instead / it’s easy to ignore the subtle ways / our very existence is an act of politics / why am I still here? / write or don’t write / say or don’t say / my silent protest today sounds / so different / than my younger self’s signature knock / rapping on doors / rousing from couches / shaking shoulders / shaking down wallets / brandishing I voted stickers / today’s meal is
guilt / shame / my own words / potatoes / I grew myself / an homage to my Slavic heritage / our tradition of mashing feelings / into something edible / our tradition of turning wheat fingers into steel claws / resistance is in my blood / pumps my heart / my resistance has entered the 21st century / it looks a lot
like this solar panel / tilted to stare the sun squarely in its reddening eye / bows / to the Earth that burns down to ashes around me / around my self-carved canyons / the Earth floods / gasps from drought / runs out of / helium / oxygen / time / empathy / white rhinos / honest politicians
leaves my sunburnt arms / to their own voice / to be weapons / against the corporatocracy / against the sputter-cough of the American dream / I leave / the bank having nothing fungible to deposit / but the promise made to my younger self / a blank check cashed daily / my younger self didn’t believe in money / lived barefoot / but that didn’t pay / and no pay no play / a child becomes adult / learns / begins to believe
in voting with your pocket / you better believe / money was / loudest / is modern day resistance song / is the heaviest burden / right / our empty pockets carry / turns blood-sweat into paper-silk / believe it is the loudest / in middle class America / as the class war carves out the middle / from under our parents’ dreams / I have fulfilled
my younger self’s aspiration / to have nothing / found my immigrant’s American dream / of having nothing / unless it’s grown by my two hands / I cultivate the crop of self / respect / of fellow man / woman / child / animal / the Earth / today it is my turn to tell my mother she can be anything / seek no permission / give every permission to those who don’t know we cannot sit back and ask for it / I give everything I have to give / I have nothing / I have everything / I give you
the reminder that to disappoint society / is to disrupt the status quo / is to fulfill the duty of our privilege / is to feed your family a humble future / instead of a meager one / is to do something right after all / what smacks of privilege has the duty of smacking privilege back / can you hear the dollar weeping for our country?
