Poem-a-Day

In the grocery store parking lot I found 
the first orange, thrashed flat by wheel after wheel
of the regional bus that ran from there to the men’s shelter
outside the city limits. I had two red mesh sacks
of oranges dangling securely from my hand.
The fruit’s mealy organ, smeared from portico
to speed bump, was not mine, I knew it was not mine,
but somehow I needed to convince myself
that I had not thrown it on the ground. 
The next was thumb-gouged on the floor 
of a rest stop bathroom. The next, on a curb,
untouched. Its bureaucratic interior, its secret hallways. 
Halved in the dry leaves beside the bike path. 
Floating on the river. In the ATM vestibule, boldly mimicking 
the CCTV’s blank ball. I thought about my complicity 
all the time or not at all. My role in America’s joyless abundance. 
When the death toll was 15,000, in December, a woman set herself on fire
outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. More than 120 people
have self-immolated in the last 20 years. For the rights of fathers,
for the climate, for veterans, for the memories of comfort women,
Abdullah Öcalan, the Udmurt language, water and electricity, Tibet. 
Because I did not know what to do with my true responsibility 
I found it senseless, everywhere. Beneath the stone lions 
flanking the Language Arts building, like a dank egg. 
Perfuming blackly on my classroom’s windowsill. 
Blazing, shattered, sweet. As soon as I started to look for them
the oranges disappeared. 

Coda

As soon as the poem was finished, Aaron Bushnell lit himself on fire.  
How did I know the poem was finished? 
I did not, as other poets often claim, put my head down 
on the table and weep. He shouted “Free Palestine”  
until fire ate all the air. The poem was finished because the world  
which had given birth to the poem had ended.