Lot’s wife died nameless // not because she looked back // but for remembering

1.	In the Beginning
… there are no slaves, … anyone that sets foot here becomes free. 
Men and women are equal before the law … Article 19, Pinochet’s Constitution
						

						
						Signatures to the Constitution
						

Our Fathers 
conceived America

in war 
and a sweet promise
all men 
are … equal …

Twenty-three years later
at full term
they aborted their oath

to native people
women
slaves

with a crow quill dipped
in iron gall ink.

Even Chile’s dictator 
did better.

2.	Martha’s Dowry and George’s Will
… he was one of the few … who was not carried away by power.  – Robert Frost
		

		
		Mount Vernon Slave Quarters
		
He was  eleven,
heir to the family farm
and ten slaves. Later that year
he bought eight more,
and yet another seven
as a young man.

He lived 
three generations. At his death 
he owned one hundred
twenty-three,

and one hundred, fifty-three more,
Martha’s dowry doubled
in their twenty-year marriage,

His and Hers, hers hostage 
to the law, destined 
for return to her first husband’s heirs.

George’s death 
freed his own 
though he left it to Martha
to sign their deeds.

He was our first King
in all but name,

Principled and elegant
said Abigail Adams


3.	Afterward from the writing workshop

	•	It’s didactic.
	•	How many times did someone post the same thing on Twitter today?
	•	It tells me what to think.
	•	I can’t tell if the piece is meant to undercut or support the Frost quote.
… these from four of the five men present.

The fifth abruptly left the workshop as I read the poem. When he called me the next day: 
	•	It’s not poetry.
	•	You disrespect the Father of our country.
	•	Most people owned slaves and you would have too.
	•	It’s hate speech.
I urged him, You really should read White Fragility. 
I had given him a copy last year -- he responded, I couldn’t understand it — 
anyway my girlfriend is African American.


4.	My Dear Friend,
		

		
		Romanisches Café
		

If we had sat together
in a Berlin café 
on that black election day in ’32,
sharing our art,
laughing and learning,

I know you would have spoken for evil
though the beast and his brown-shirts
were weaker then 
than ours are now. [1]

Would you still have spoken so in ’33
when their mad master so like ours
triumphed, [2]

or weeks later
when their Capitol burned, [3]
or the next day
when their Patriot Act passed, [4]
or the next month
when their Manzanar opened? [5]

What say you now, so like then,
just weeks since our President’s darlings,
The Uncolored Beasts,
swarmed our Reichstag?

Which of us will pick up your tab this time
and what will it be?

When is the end of friendship? 

Will you speak for the monsters still,
tender yet again
the caress of your madness
to all of us who love you?