I thought by now the whistles would warp us
to a future in peace jump me ahead of this dark
underground level Mario I have crushed
enough Koopas to keep my genocidal ancestry
whooping from their battleground graves didn’t
feel much sanctity from Arlington Cemetery
sorry when they buried my brother at Ohio
Western Reserve gravestones orderly as pill
bottles on the shelves of corporate pharmacy
what rings in my brain are the gunshots
of old white veterans fired during Clinton’s
final ceremony bullets whizzing up the sky
just to land on the dirt covering
graves of my genocidal ancestry
(originally published in Impspired, Spring 2020)