Cuffed
The police are taking him to a white van,
his palms zip-tied behind his again.
That is what I see on Instagram: my son
in a yellow Say No to Fossil Fuels t-shirt,
wooden beads round his neck, his hair
dripping sweat. Police in riot helmets
with weapons. He’s being arrested once more
exterior Citibank’s revolving door. Concern
clenches my throat, its claws lengthy and sharp,
just like the claws on the enormous snapping turtle
I noticed climb out of the new bathroom muck
final week. Warrior, lugging its scuffed armor,
unable to close out hurt. Its eyes are
cupped by three pairs of lids, good for closing tight.
A 2023 New Jersey Council on the Arts Poetry Fellow, Robin Rosen Chang is the creator of the full-length assortment, The Curator’s Notes (Terrapin Books). Her poetry has appeared not too long ago in Alaska Quarterly Overview, New Ohio Overview, and Plume and has additionally been featured on Verse Each day. She teaches writing at Montclair State College.
Learn extra Letters to America in Expensive America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance and Democracy, printed by Trinity College Press in collaboration with Terrain.org.
Header picture by Jack Bulmer, courtesy Pixabay.
