Mass Deception
There’s no wonder here.
No wonder we are so
tight tense irritable. Sick more often.
No surprise, no wonderful
to see you, no more
pleasantries masking indifference
or contempt.
We have been stripped,
no more luxury of pretty
gauzy layers.
Gone are the rote
smiles and murmurings of
sorry I’m sorry excuse me
if we brush against
each other in line,
at work, on the sidewalk.
We are laid almost bare,
our held hates and assorted isms
sloganing en masse
across the country, red
rivers and blue, across
T-shirts and hats
being made in China or the Philippines
by seven year old girls,
and lest we claim
Not I, Not us,
as we proudly flaunt our own
anti-slogans, anti-isms,
sprawled across those same
sweatshop shirts and hats
and on our Facebook pages,
and plumping up our poems and podcasts,
lest we even try to hold
an innocence,
the omnipotent voice,
that which cannot be controlled,
hums beneath the surface
like a million bees in the hive,
whispers and shouts
“We are all one.”
And
“What you do to the other
you do twicefold to yourself.”
Make no mistake.
The Voice will, eventually,
keep us up at night and
beat us down in the light of day,
refusing to leave us alone,
because we aren’t, after all,
alone, and we never were.
What will you
or I
or we
perpetrate, perpetuate,
manifest and instigate
on this day?
Love isn’t love,
if it’s splintered, factional,
and the sun doesn’t shine brighter
for one country, one race, one belief system.
It seems to me we are like pearls
on an endless looping necklace,
having been hidden in a muted shell,
born of irritation and a need for protection,
our beauty is kept from the larger world.
Such a lustre when, emancipated,
soothed and smoothed by mutual respect,
which is a kind of love, after all,
we come together
to sway and jostle and shine,
and oh! How we shine.
–Melinda Coppola