“It didn’t matter to honor the dead / What he said. / It doesn’t matter. / The meaning has no meaning. / Such adorable rhetoric. / So soothing to the palate and the public.” Frederick Seidel

begins the news
tossing

a protected son of
silver tightly packed aluminum dancing self-doubt
of nations and distretched before

you were
you were
you were

so few
are joking self-doubt
of
nations
and
hasn’t heard
the water
fraught
with
isness
and
someone’s buen estudiante
with
a high pain threshold
or pierces its red
velvet
tongue

like
an eel
wretched
before

you were
you were

so
few are
joking under his tongue
like an eel trap
her body caught with
a high pain threshold
or perhaps

the sliver
of
choice you
were

you were
you
were

now so few
are
joking self-doubt
of
nations