by Ernie McCray
As I still reflect on the positive and hopeful vibe
that I basked in
at a Dr. Martin Luther King Day
celebration,
I find myself
thinking about
the night before the event
when I went to bed
feeling a little trepidation
because of the upcoming inauguration
of a man who stands against
any and every idea that ever played
in MLK’s warmhearted imagination,
and it seems that I had barely laid
my head on my pillow
before, without any hesitation,
Maria, my querida,
was shaking me and yelling
“Wake up, Ernie, you’re screaming!”
and I truly was
because I was in a situation
where I was walking down a long dark and scary hall
and came upon a man
to whom I reached out to
shake his hand,
and the next thing I know
a cold mysterious wind began to blow
in a creepy howl
that started out petrifyingly slow
and grew, suddenly, into a tremendously chilling roar
and before
I could even utter a word
millions upon millions
of Stephen Miller look-alikes materialized
stripping brown babies from their mamis’ and papis’
clutches and throwing them in cages
as their cries pierced the skies
and oil gushed
and burnt,
fueling hurricanes and floods
and snow and firestorms
right before my foreboding eyes
and they cursed and fee-fi-fo-fummed
about kissing diversity and equity and inclusion
a bloody goodbye,
but, somehow, I was safe from this
and hugged myself
to keep myself quiet
as I did not want to be seen
and then some eerily familiar faces
appeared on the scene,
some people who I had once gaped at
as they
stormed the U.S. Capitol Building on TV
on a sad and frightful day
in Washington D.C.
like overly adrenalized psychotic fiends
and the moment they noticed me
they rushed towards me
flailing firearms and tasers
and knives
as I screamed “Hey! Hey! Hey!”
over and over again, hopelessly,
in this ghastly dream,
as though
that would save me,
as I stood there frozen, unable to flee,
holding a walking cane,
as my only form of weaponry,
no chance to escape,
leaving me to give up,
not knowing that my beautiful 81-year-old buttercup
was a moment away
from shaking me and waking me up
and that later
she and I would be revering my dear Martin
on his birthday,
a celebration
that washed this frightening night terror away.
But I know that, in our country,
there’s a real nightmare underway,
given life by a flawed evil-spirited orange-faced miserable creature
who became president again
on this very day
and we’ll have to find the means
to un-demonize
him in some way.
