28 July 2020
The aggressor is a
woman in a long black dress; a man in camo wrestles her to the
street. He sticks his knee in her back while another man straddles
her. The theater of rape as revenge is not actual rape, therefore
cannot be tried. Because it’s theater, it never happens. There’d
been a Greek chorus, but its members turned away from tear gas and
pepper spray. It was the year of not being able to breathe; hospitals
filled with victims of violence or virus. Federal agents were silent
as they roamed the streets. “Who are you?” a woman yelled, but
they made no answer. Violence begins in silence. She’d sit in a
room for days staring straight. She didn’t want
to say anything she’d regret, so she offered us her withholding. An
angry quiet settled into the room. (Red and white squared
upholstery, a file cabinet in the closet for important papers, hinged
metal turtle on the desk to hold stamps, velvet inside its lid.) We gave you all the
opportunities. The vice president’s aide was sent to Texas to see
kids in cages; her colleagues thought she’d feel compassion for
them. “It didn’t work,” she announced, on her return. After a
bout of coronavirus she announced her pregnancy on twitter.
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