Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and maybe Hartford Park
by Kasandra Larsen
The man more than half of us can’t believe
is calling himself the President
doesn’t want Muslims to come. He says
National Security,
Threat
even though no bombs
have hit us from these places. He says
Yet.
The way some people say Bad Neighborhood
when you tell them you’re searching
for a house, and they’re trying
to say Brown people live there, lots of them, who speak
Other languages. The way
they tell you it’s near the Projects because they sense
that poor might have a tendency
to rub off. And it does, they’re right
about that, poverty
begets more, one mean thought
connects itself to the next until
it’s someone’s fault for all these shootings and no
jobs, these women
wearing headscarves
easy targets when they don’t look
anything like you.
Their men bleed too.
Kasandra Larsen
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and maybe Hartford Park by Kasandra Larsen first appeared in Bare Fiction Magazine Issue 10 (November 2017).