Let Jesse Helms hawk and spit
on the floor of the Senate.
Let everyone speak.
Let the Nazis march in Skokie, in Brookline,
In Shaker Heights, and let them speak because
for every twelve-year-old inspired to shave his head
and burn effigies deep in the backwoods,
there are four other people
who lie awake all night, remembering
that we’re not in the clear, not yet.
If we all talk at once, from this jailhouse rock of discord
a portrait of the opposition will slowly emerge–
his vaccination scar, the contents of his pockets,
the twisted shape of his recurring nightmare.
We need that picture, that roadmap.
What is more unnerving that the mystery guest
nursing his drink in the corner,
observing the debate, perched on his pile of coats?
So the earth jolts a little in its unchosen
path, so maybe we took that last curve a little
too sharply, so what if we all talk at once and
the noise is unbearable? The silence was worse.