By Robert Knox
PROMPT—Ask Me.
Ask me
what i think about Nazis protesting the housing
of homeless immigrants in a motel in Kingston, Mass
and i will tell you that a motel in Kingston has seldom, if ever,
been put to so good a use
it is not to Kingston, that harmless add-on to better known neighboring Plymouth, America's so-called hometown,
that i address my outrage,
but to the debasement of public morality
the corrupting of values
that allows for the fermentation and public expression
of base moral stupidity
when last have we said, pleaded, "C'mon America, you're better than this?" is it that we no longer believe that the people of this country
are no better than the criminals
of those other eras, that in other troubled times,
burned down an Irish orphanage,
judicially murdered Italian immigrants in Massachusetts
for a crime they did not commit
broke into a jail and lynched immigrants in Louisiana
bombed a daycare center in Oklahoma
and killed, killed, killed Black Americans all across the regions
now confidently expected to vote the color of blood
next Tuesday
I am ready to forgive Florida, forgive Texas,
they know not what they do, though they sure as well ought to,
but i cannot bring myself to cut any slack
to the ghouls of Massachusetts who on All Hallows Eve
showed us that true horrors
once more walk upon the landscape of "The Crucible."
Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, and correspondent for The Boston Globe. His novel, Suosso's Lane treats the Plymouth MA origins of the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti case. His collection of linked short stories, House Stories was published last year. He is also a contributing editor to Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal, and he has published two poetry chapbooks. He writes from Quincy, MA.