Rise Up Review
Names
If you begin a registry with names
of the couple and their son on my street
because they are Muslims, enter my name
next, then the names of every member
of the KKK, of those who clean the golden
houses of the rich and speak in the richer
languages of America, of women abused
by men, of men abused by women, of the guilty
and the innocent, of truth-tellers and liars,
of artists, writers, and poets, of dancers and musicians,
of blue-collar workers, of teachers, of the living
who cannot forget what they saw in the death camps,
of those who as children played in the dirt at Manzanar,
of lobbyists, quacks, and politicians, of women
who wear chadors and those who don’t, of men
who wear sombreros and those who won’t, of the homeless
and the hungry, and then, save yours, the names of every
other citizen and those who hope to become citizens,
and finish with your name in indelible letters, and then
the registry will be, for a moment, an unsundered nation.
—William Speer
@riseupreview 2017
William Speer lives in northwest Arkansas. His poetry has appeared in several print and online journals.
