& When They Come for Me (Reprise)

I can’t give you my eye,
nor a kidney, nor a second

right now. We have to hustle
up the block like antelopes
cus all the buses are

colonists. All the signs
are chandeliers, light

stuck in shambles.
I’m eating earth-

worms watching
neighbors become stars,

Grannies becoming idols, parents
become strangers. Our childhoods
were sundials. Adulthood sundered & stabbed

for the Sabbath. Our nations are out,
our capitals are overrun with word-rot.

I’m photographing the apocalypse
while watching history through the mouth

of a shield. I’m from conifers
peeling potpourri for the arrivals

needing helipads. Summon oblivion & still
I give my heart to the panthers
to the Palestinians cracking open

a skull-warm winter, screaming back we’re all the I
in nation—even when we’re scheduled to die.