Poem #7 Two Years Ago

Two years ago
I was afraid to wake up
Afraid to find out
The truth I knew in my bones

Even today, I have to circle around the memory
It’s a dark cesspool
And if I tarry too long
I will surely fall in
And be flushed away

I remember the slow walkers at the kids’ school
Weeping and embracing
Everyone dressed in black
As if someone had died

Someone did die.

There were still glimmers of hope
That day
Maybe it was all a bad dream
Maybe it was a bad counting job
Maybe the Russians had rigged the whole thing
Maybe the electoral college would set it right
Put the china back on the table

She won the popular vote, we said like a refrain.
There are more of us than there are of them.

Did rat-faced people come in the night
And erase our memories?
Did we forget everything we saw, heard, tasted, felt, smelled?
Does the story really belong to he who bellows the loudest?

I look back on the pictures I took the day after.
They don’t hold the shock or the grief or the terror
And I don’t know if that’s because
The idea was worse than the reality
Or the reality was worse than the idea.