Balanced On the Edge

            In this dream,  the driver’s asleep at the wheel.

The dream won’t let the driver’s foot touch the brakes.

It’s night, and the headlights won’t turn on.

     In this dream, highways loop in labyrinths,

deer clog the exit ramps.  Wild fires

savage forests of magnolia, loblolly pines, mountain laurel.

Forecasters on the radio warn to stay inside,

shut the windows, don’t breathe the code orange air.

     In this dream, police hose a circle of water protectors

in the subzero dark, spray rubber bullets

and tear gas at Black protesters on freeways.

In this dream a  Syrian boy caked with bomb-blast

wipes blood from his eye with a tiny fist.

 In this dream, men in three-piece suits with fashy haircuts

ink swastikas on concrete benches,

grab the vaginas of women with dragonfly tattoos,

snatch the hijab off a mother’s head.

     In this dream a fevered white man in a church

shoots down nine Black worshippers.

      In this dream a president sings Amazing Grace

with his whole heart in his throat.

      In this dream a block-letter sign

outside a church with the tallest, whitest spire

shouts, “PRAY FOR DONALD TR**P.”

      In this dream a shard of grief  is lodged behind my breastbone.