Because boiled weeds, with feed
that donkeys will not eat,
aren’t allowed to mean starvation
if someone’s throat is open.

Because children who play dead
next to their bleeding classmates
don’t get complex grownup stuff
and can’t outtalk the pundits.

Because Just stop killing us
doesn’t lock thumbs up like
Put your hands on ten
and two, because both sides.

Because my college theater friend
who worked three part-time jobs
to buy bare-bones health insurance
died in bed at thirty-seven.

Because let us reason together.
Because civil discourse, and let
he who is without sin.
Because the truth lies somewhere

between lunar sex slave colonies
and knowing who’s the boss.
Because I despair of writing
words that aren’t already dust.

(with thanks to Richard Hoffman for the title)