Grievance

for Henry and the Bangor Six

The sound of our laws breaking—

Like bread falling from our mouths

We lived among people who vanished into exile, labor camps, or the other world

Also among those who sent them there

We never asked, what was he arrested for

But now I have regained my sense of despair and am capable once more of screaming

A grrr in an ur place

I petition with my body, drawing on walls of the senator’s office faces of dead soldiers

You were in the building? I was

You heard the order to leave the building? I did

You heard the repeated warning? I did

Yet you refused to leave? I did

And you were arrested? I was

You might have gone home, you might have gone anywhere else, you just couldn’t be there

I was at home there. The Bill of Rights was etched into the wall

I came for redress of grievance. The root is grief

There is a dance in it. I stayed and redressed my soul

I was obliged. I was grieving



Lines 5-8 adapted from Nadeshda Mandelstam, Hope against Hope.