WRITING MY COUNTRY


We talk in half-poems as we drive
to the market

we notice the pockets of light
along the sidewalk and on the
rows of houses and trees

but the dark matter of their cruelty
coalesces around us

We have a list in our pocket we tell
ourselves

there will be flowers

There will be food in
assigned aisles

There will be a feeling of the ordinary
as we fill the grocery-cart

And we have grandchildren

But outside there are streets and parking lots
where some will be pulled apart from their
loved ones and taken away

or now shot in their cars

holding the same list of errands
that we do


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Beau Beausoleil is a poet and activist based in San Francisco, California. His two most recent books of poetry are, War News II-12/9/23 to 6/3/24 (fmsbw press) which consists of daily poems that track where Gaza is in our own body and landscape. And, Poet as Naturalist (Raven and Wren Press). His poem, “Writing My Country” is from his about to be published collection of poems entitled Writing My Country (Raven and Wren Press).