I Turn on Democracy Now! to Hear

Amy’s finally cleared up whatever’s been stuck in her throat.
Bless! Breaking news, she reports. Medicare now
covers kale at your farmers market where the flanneled eye candy
draws tarot . . . which, yes, is also covered. And isn’t law
enforcement a shit euphemism? Effective immediately,
firing squads have been gutted in favor of
gourmet school lunches, glitzy public
housing, and the highest-speed rail.
Immigrants, amnesty. Debt’s unconditional
jubilee. Plus, Juan’s not fumbling any of his lines today!
Keep your eyes peeled, he says, for Young
Lords U., overdue like the Land Back legislation
moving through Congress, though tribal leaders expect amendments.
Nermeen? Thank you, Amy. Nationalize is the word
organizers keep chanting: banks, the energy grid,
profit-maximizing hedge funds
quietly masquerading as universities. Also
reparations, the central demand of the general
strike set for next month.
Teachers, nurses, and auto workers
unions, at their unprecedented assembly, hammered out a platform
vastly more ambitious than pundits had imagined. Not us.
We’ve been waiting. War, war, ‘peace,’ war.
X-ray an empire and trace a backbone
yoked to misery, but not broken . . . not yet. A non-
zero chance is not zero.