He came up behind me as I grabbed the door
with the sleeve of my sweater. He had no
mask. He was six inches away from my face.
The notice read “Mask Required for Entry.”
He said, “I don’t give a f*** about that.” I
felt his hot breath and started to tremble,
“Is this my death sentence?”

Simple ignorance
lacks satisfying sufficience
in explaining present existence
when stupid, audacious belligerence
is less of a hindrance
to understanding Americans’ contentiousness
at being conscientious
in following virus safety recommendations.

The days of my life
in our shut down,
never say lockdown,
life starts with dog
duty and kitchen duty
and then some
personal duty
and reaching for
the computer as if
reaching desperately
for a salvific glass
of water to quench
a parched throat
and thirst — the
meditations by
the holy ones who
hold the pitcher
and pour and then
the poems galore.
And then, and only
then, the news of
the day and come
what may—hem…
from him
who holds not
the salvific pitcher
of holy water
but merely a
chokehold
and then I take
deep breaths
and watch the
dune grass
wave at me.

Just a few years ago, the man heard a college
professor/administrator say that the only
purpose of college admission tests is simply

an arbitrary excuse for administrators to
decide inclusions and exclusions after every-
thing else. The man recalls taking the ACT

in the first semester of his high school senior
year. The test flew right out of his hands into
the highest heavens of test accomplishments.

He was prematurely proud. The man recalls
the SAT in the second semester of his senior year.
The test wiggled its way out of his hands and

buried itself under the creaky floorboards of
the test room. What he didn’t think of at the
time and what didn’t matter once the test score

pencil # 2 was placed on the desk never to be
picked up again is that the man’s dad had just
died before he took the second test. Fortunately,

the man was the beneficiary of administrators
who considered everything else before deciding
on matters of exclusion and inclusion for test

results that didn’t matter much either in the
heavens above or the floorboards beneath
anyway in the great scheme of things.

*today in 1926, the SAT was first administered.

He read something like, “Don’t worry
about it, Pops. Even Willie Mays drop-
ped a few pop-ups, especially toward

the end of his career.” The reader im-
mediately felt cleansing water wash
over him all these years later. He had

been the star of the team. One player
had told the man’s son that the team
was lucky to have his father playing.

Then one day it happened. He had gone
for a long run and still had to play that
evening. He was tired and misjudged

a fly ball to deep left field. It hit his glove,
popped out and fell to the ground with
a thud the fielder thought must have

been heard all the way to heaven or
hell. They lost the game, he lost his
nerve as a fielder and that was that

until he read those words, “Don’t worry
about it…Even Willie Mays dropped
some….” It seemed so small, so insig-

nificant, and yet, he knew, when he felt
the water rush over him, redemption with-
out ever having to field another fly ball.

In the resurrection, someone joked,
We all come back thirty-five and beautiful.
A religious scientist then spoke.
He said it has been a universe full

Of explosions that cooled to you
And everything that could be,
And when we cooled we turned blue
As blue as me, thee and the sea.

And when we are all done and through
We get planted like so many seeds
And bloom right back when spring pops through
Though less blue than green that bleeds.

In the bleeding, we know how beautiful we are;
We bleed Christ’s red blood love like a twinkling star.

“Police are there to keep us all safe.
Police brutality is a disgrace,”
the Black activist did say.
That first line is easy for whites to say.
The second line is one whites don’t think to say,
because they face police brutality
hardly any day.
If whites faced what blacks say is the price they pay,
whites wouldn’t pay to play
and they would be the first “Defund!” to say.

About a measly five-hundred-years ago
Copernicus and Galileo helped us see

that we aren’t the center of the universe
and that all things do not rotate around

our ample butts. Was that all just 500 years
ago! What a short period of time. About a

gigantic four-hundred-years ago we en-
slaved a whole ethnicity out of the whole of

the human race. We learned so much such
a very few years ago in the history of creation

and then we did what we have been doing
since Adam and Eve and the first family wan-

dered around metaphorically — we whites
continue killing (actually not metaphorically)

God’s black and brown and red children. Are
we just angry now that we know we aren’t the

center of the universe? Are we just grasping
at another falsehood — that we are the center

of America? Most (but not all if you can believe
that) of us whites have given up a flat earth

but we are still flat heads with fat butts.

Three months into the strange new world of coronavirus,
It seems that a pall has descended upon us.
Social distancing, masks and fear
Have shaken liberties the most stalwart hold dear.
So many of the cooped-up are now acting out
and have decided the cautionary rules to flout.
They drive like maniacs;
They go on verbal attacks.
They chide those who follow the rules as jerks wearing stupid masks,
But, as always, the virus wins, in the end;
The flouters lose no matter what contrary but deadly message
The White House sends.

I had seen her at the park
before with her two mixed
breed pits. They were nice
dogs. I petted them and we
chatted. My wife said that
she walked our dog on a
leach and the woman’s dogs
frightened our dog. When I
saw her again I said, “Lady,
you have nice dogs but they
need to be on a leash.” She
ignored me. I said, “You aren’t
going to pay any attention to
what I am saying, are you?”
I raised my voice, “Lady, you
need to put the dogs on a
leash. It’s the law.” She said
that she normally has the
leashes around her neck if
she needs them but the dogs
know her commands and she
forgot the leashes at home. I
said that that doesn’t make
any difference. She started to
scream at me and I screamed
back over her screams and she
yelled that I was attacking her,
attacking her, attacking her and
I said, “That’s it. I’m calling
the cops.” By the time I got
the 911 dispatcher, “Karen” was
back at her SUV getting the
leashes. Thank God I made the
call and not Karen. Thank God
I’m not Black or the outcome
might have been pretty different,
like dead different.

Most of my life
has been spent
doing the Australian
walkabout
or maybe the whirl
of the Dervish —
spinning ’round and round
dizzy as a drunk
in the children’s game,
tipsy, topsy, turvy —
which way to go —
with just
the right people
at the right time
to offer a hand
and
to say,
“If you want,
I’ll help you go
whatever way
is your best way.”
And they did,
I’m still here
(a little less
dizzy each day)
to say.