Marisol Cortez
Don’t Wanna Tell
1.
I don’t want to tell
my 13-year-old about
Adam Toledo
I told him about
Daunte Wright the other day
but since then, Adam
from Little Village,
barrio not unlike our own,
was killed by police
too. He was 13
like my eldest
and Daunte Wright, just
20, leaves behind
a baby the age of my
toddler. Just a year.
I have often thought
it is no coincidence
that when the state kills
in broadest daylight—
extrajudicially, no
recourse, no justice
—it’s children who die.
Black and brown, someone’s babies:
no matter the age.
In wars, in cages,
traffic stops, asleep in bed:
no coincidence.
2.
I don’t want to tell
my 13-yr-old that the
Texas lege has him
in its sights, and me
and anyone who listens
to who trans kids say
they are, threatening
to take our children away
for seeking health care.
As if T was a
thing we could even afford.
Y’all just posturing.
Playing culture war
footsie with your base,flexing.
Terrorizing kids.
Per usual.
In the news I see
reports of parents who say
they will leave Texas
if these laws get passed.
But this is our home. Why should
we have to leave it
because of assholes?
Listen: we’re not leaving. They
should leave, actually.
Marisol Cortez writes across genre for all the other borderwalking weirdos out there. She is author of the award-winning climate fiction novel Luz At Midnight (Flowersong Press, 2020) and I Call on the Earth, a chapbook of documentary poetry about the displacement of Mission Trails Mobile Home Community. For more poetry, prose, and other projects, visit mcortez.net