Photo by Dennis Rochel on Unsplash
There are—lions—roaming the streets, roars rattling frail windows and doors, eating the poor. Menacing, golden-maned monster—stay inside or see your own insides spilled out on the sidewalk—that’s the talk—true as Christmas cookies. The sickness comes and spreads and soon we’ll all be gone and dead, but you don’t need to wear a mask—that’s what the president just said. There’ll be a miracle before summer’s end—God’s got you covered my friend, and by the time we send our children back to school the world will be nothing but cool—that’s what Betsy said. Here, drink this cup of bleach, or inject it straight instead, and soon you’ll see it isn’t all that dire. Australia was never really on fire. The lions live in Russia, too far away to claw your skin, and also, there are dolphins. Yes—dolphins—the silt sunk to the bottom, the water’s still and clear—dolphins in canals, flipping and frolicking to see us here. Monkeys screeching as they swing from rooftops in Japan, this is all a bigger plan—elephants drunk on fermented fruit, passed out amid their loot in a tea garden so neat, their pinafores muddy and torn at the knee. It’s ending by Easter, haven’t you heard? You must know the nurses stole the masks, such selfish heathens, and that’s why there aren’t enough. But you shouldn’t wear one anyways—aren’t you an American? Fight for your rights, your freedom to spread contagion. It’s their children and not ours who should be caged in Mexico. Don’t you know, that’s what he said, our president. What a man! Repent your sins and count your wins—go and get your hair recut, strut to your re-opened gym, drink away this nastiness near the seaside summer breeze. You say black lives matter? That’s un-American, too. Says who? The news, our hope, the president. The “they” who know just what to do. Dr. Fauci? He isn’t true—fake news! But then again, what else is new? Everyone wants to lie to you. Just do what your president tells you to and—thinking? You can’t do that, you little rat, you’ll cause a spat. That’s the way the world will end—don’t be ensnared, tricked, or scared—there’re willy ones who want come and overrun this country. We don’t want your poor and hungry, tired, tattered, tempest-tossed—get lost!—this is the land of the free. You preach diversity? That’s what caused this mess—what brought us to our muddy pinafore knees, oh please, equality is what you see. You say white privilege? That you can’t breathe? I don’t—I won’t—I can’t believe or change what I do. We are great, white, and straight—that’s what the president told me, before they stole the election, see, those radicals in blue, and all our real president’s news is true.
Via D’Agostino earned her MFA in fiction writing from the University of New Hampshire and, as an activist and a demisexual woman of mixed race, her writing often focuses on social justice issues. Her poem "Ocean" was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize and she has over 25 published stories, poems, and essays. She has worked as a writing teacher for the New Hampshire poet laureate, as an English lecturer in Peru and the Czech Republic, and is now an English professor in Mexico.