For Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia
Look at them. Shaved heads. Tattoos
across their chests. Their backs.
Even splayed across foreheads. Evidence
of crimes too terrible to be described
before some bored judge
with acid reflux playing a crossword.
No more. Our brave president,
who I give thanks to each day,
empowered me to root these creatures out
from school basements, church
closets, community center
bathroom stalls. To deliver them
here, behind bars in El Salvador,
where they’re free to carve the names
of their gangs and their girlfriends
into dank, concrete walls.
Far from me and you
and your dear babies.
For which we must once more
praise our absolute
leader, who can never be praised
loud or long or often enough.
I tell you each night he dreams
he’s spun himself
a cocoon, a silken flag-cocoon,
and what shall break from it,
no one wants to know.
No one. Not you and me
and certainly not these
rough shaven-headed beasts.
.
John Bradley
.