Friday, February 17, 2023

I try to understand another mass shooting / I hope it's better where you are

the police come by to tell us to turn off lights and lock doors
the police tell us to turn off lights and lock doors, so I do
feeling this body in which I have always lived recede
I sleep with the puppies, trying to keep them quiet
dipping my thoughts into the night 
the nearness of this dunya,
the facts of 
the world
44th day of the year = 67th mass shooting of the year
330 million people : 393.3 million guns
50,000 students on campus now - 8  
It's like one of those rubbish 
math problems and anyway 
I'm so rubbish at math 
my only math quote 
is from the movie
Mean Girls:
the limit does not exist
the limit does not exist 
and what little I know cannot begin to explain 
the things you kind of know and cannot say 
this rapping against rumor and fear 
in class I lectured on literary theory
parenthetically on New Criticism 
those old formalists proclaiming
poems are self-contained 
and self-referential
they should not 
mean, but 
just be
as

the author's intention doesn't matter
the author's intention doesn't matter
in the morning after, those of us who've survived 
can hear the FBI and several State Police 
who are are live on the radio asking
in a carnival of indecision why-- 
why did he do it, what made him
want to shoot up campus 
it seems a bit oblivious
I want to tell them 
what I learned 
to yell
what little I know cannot begin to explain 
there's no math or meaning making here
the author's intention doesn't matter
the limit does not exist
the author's intention 
doesn't matter
the limit 
does not 
exist

6 comments:

Nicole MacPherson said...

xoxoxo

Gillian said...

Good although it is sad.

maya said...

💗

StephLove said...

Last stanza is very powerful.

maya said...

Thank you, StephLove. It needs more work, but I plan to send this out when its ready. Ideas/edits welcome (if you have the time/inclination/energy).

Sarah said...

I love the contrast between the daily work of the classroom and the chaos outside-- and I have had so many moments lately where stuff I have taught a million times bumps up against reality in a way I never expected.

my beautiful baby

 It has been a year. Some days it feels like yesterday, some days it feels like a distant dream of love.     There have been tears every day...