I wrote the following poem the morning after
the Uvalde elementary school shootings.
It is certainly not a great poem.
It may not even be a good one.
It’s an angry poem.
Among its many flaws may be that it’s not
angry enough.
THE LAKE
This lake of gasoline we stand in, ankle-deep,
making us swoon, reeking, watching the smokers walk among us,
and our growing concern, some call it fear, about our safety,
with our kids playing in the vapors rising,
while the lifeguards we’ve chosen to protect us
strut along the shore and break into scripted arguments
whenever a smoking ash from a smoker’s cigarette
sparks a fire on the surface of the lake – one group shouting
that ankle-deep is deep enough, and shutting down
a few of the pumps streaming gasoline in, and making it
a little harder for people to smoke will put an end
to the danger we in the lake are facing.
But the others yell back that the only thing keeping us safe at all
is for every man, woman, smoker, and child
and all the children they could ever have to be assured
of a never-ending flow of gasoline to stand in and therefore
the pumps should never stop pumping and to ever close them
is the biggest threat of all.
So here we stand, ankle-deep in our deadly lake, watching
our chosen life-guardians snapping towels at one another
with the pumps pumping and the smokers puffing
and a gnawing feeling of unease because
the smokers keep lighting up and
the shore is for the guardians and
there’s nowhere else to go.
Bill Jeffers
5/25/2022
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