Midwinter’s Day: Orange Alert

Posted on December 23, 2003 in Poems

The terrorist

is on talk radio

telling us “be afraid”

“but don’t change your travel plans.”

Be sure to show up for work.

Buy a car and eat diet bars

until you have a figure like Britney Spears.

Don’t fear Fear, says the terrorist.

Let it comfort you:

  in the jingle of the keys in the ignition

  in the misty blue water scent of your underarm wax

  in the careful part you make in your hair

  in the octane rating of the gas you pump

  in the bank you choose for your checking plan.

I am afraid

and I don’t like it

anymore than I like

sitting in the free lane watching those who pay go faster

rubbing the bruise that I got from stopping too quick

eyeing the smog squatting across the center divider on a summer’s day.

Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?

I ask the terrorist

but he’s all mouth

and no ears, vibrating cardboard

a bulleted screen. His

shibboleths go undebated.

I am just a murmuring martyr

on my way to work

a cinder among the ashes in a flowing river

that always runs greasy and dry.

“Next in our half hour: road rage.”

I laugh. I say

“I feel that.”

Everytime I hear the terrorist

intone an invented fact

about the women who wear hijabs

the men who won’t watch football

the kids who won’t do their math homework

I feel like I want to get off the freeway

and drive several blocks on the streets,

running every traffic light. I want to do that

because every time the terrorist speaks

it’s like a bullet smashing through the windshield,

cutting through my jaw

one tooth at a time.

The whole smile at once.