Susan Daniels Poetry

this is for you, with the sign my hands itch to take down
but don’t.  since the revolution we are no strangers
to violence, but mostly our overthrows are bloodless
& with ballots, not bullets; though Lincoln,
Garfield, McKinley & Kennedy argue one man’s idea
trumps an electoral college & the cost of difference or caprice
can be death, or war. they paid it

but this place where violence swallows speech
or speech is lost in fists cannot be my country
can it? do we need peacekeepers
to count our ballots & defend our polls?

i’ll call that swastika painted on a Denver window speech,
like the NOBAMA sign in my neighbor’s yard
& the one next door screaming SOCALISM inaccurate
in capital letters & misspelled speech

because in my town we talk politics gently,
shake heads easy as we shake hands,
smile at differences & promise to show up at polls
to cancel disagreement, but bullets through windows

or beating a man for his Romney sign
is not speech, or an issue of right or left

& again i am back to that line of blood
between voice & crime, treason

or incitement to treason

that line that is not politics but hate running loose
where guns & fists strike more pointed blows than fingers
flipping levers lightly behind drawn curtains,
such a simple thing, with more weight than blood & lead