We sit in the senate

so proud and so male,

so straight and so Christian,

so old and so pale

Which ones do you cage

and make jump through fiery hoops?

Which ones do you cram inside

tiny metal coops?

I held my breath,

defying osmosis

Across the water,

the hope of asylum

appears tangible,

so closely within reach

We’ll laugh 
when we tell
our grandkids

A spectacle of joy

for the girls and the boys

Flinging chickens

at the County Fair

If only these football players would have voiced their concerns respectfully like their president does…

I’m sorry for 

unprovoked attacks,

eyes for preemptive eyes

Ring-a-round the rosie,

        Respiratory droplets, 

A pocket full of posies,

          Toilet paper in our closets,

With happy castration,

how we frolic away

while elastic bands squeeze our nuts

waiting for eventual decay

Their walls of sadness surround them, engulf them

An isolation of suffering that threatens to suffocate them

It takes nerve to call

us overpopulated

when you have billions

Armed with only your books and your unbelievably strong determination

You walked

I try to write a poem expressing my views on current politics

but I only end up plagiarizing Robert De Niro

Let’s admit systemic racism still flagrantly flourishes. 

Let’s work to change it. Even if it means some statues of Columbus fall into a lake.

The beautiful and brutal tapestry of contradictions,

Be polite, they tell us,

don’t shout with the truth 

as we steal the future

breath by breath from the youth

As long as I could remember, she had loved flowers

In her gardens, on her table

“But bacon!” was the mic drop

The end of having to feel,

the instant end to imagining

the suffering in a meal

Everyone always uses “rabbit food” when comparing

a vegan diet to that of another animal,

as if that were the only herbivore known to man