Part one.
Their bodies are huge. This is their primary characteristic,
their calling card. This is what they are: huge bodies.
To be among them is to truly know that you are not home
where you once made seven free throws in a row,
where you grasped the judge’s hand and looked her in the eye
and said, where y’all make the justice up in here?
Where I am now is with the huge bodies, in August.
They are calling for equity. They are chanting rhymes
about the difference between equity and equality.
The words are ungainly and the chants go in and out of phase.
What do we want? is answered with What do we want?
Our pale giant minder, slathered with zinc and sun block,
carries our party sensibly in a strong box acquired from Ikea.
The product is called something which is also
one of the million unspeakable names of God. Every time
someone buys one, God wakes up for a moment, wondering
who is calling for Them. And then goes right back to sleep.
We helped Jen with its construction. Our miniscule hands
were perfect for the task of marshalling and corralling
the tiny screws and tabs, and we only had one injury. Tenderly
Jen applied the arnica gel to my shoulder, first warming it
on the great living platform of her palm. Her huge body, my small body.
That is the only difference between us, of course: everything.
What do we want, answering what do we want? We want
everything, we want that one difference to disappear, we want
that one difference held holy, we want that one difference
to be seamlessly incorporated into our lives like advertising.
As leader of the expedition, and for no other reason, I am not
carried in the box. I ride her shoulder, a pasha lashed down a dozen ways
in clouds of sweat and chant and hair and sun beating down,
in the scent of huge bodies which I have grown to relish,
in the rifle scopes of twenty bored snipers employed by the state,
in civil discourse, in polite discussion, in thousands of deaths.
In thick air charged with the clarity of slogans, I lean against Jen’s neck
and consider the rumors of war, and liberation, rumors of equity,
and the rumor that the government created all the snack food their charges crave
in order to make them sterile, in order to make them docile, in order to shrink everyone.
Size Writes 