How Dumb Can You Be?(For Betty Shabazz)

Rosemary Daniell

“But what he did was so awful.”
      -- a friend, of John Salvi’s murder of the abortion clinic nurses

“Think of him as you would a wild animal -- beautiful,
but you don’t want to get too close.”
      -- a social worker to the mother of a mentally ill man

“Whoever gives in to terrorism has to be prepared to do
so many times.”
      -- Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lazada

to stand there in your fast-melting flesh --
“smoldering,” the papers said -- and cry
“what will become of my grandson?”
the 12-year-old who made you thus
the boy you asked to save from the daughter
who had already tortured you for years?
As dumb as the preacher who goes to his
mad son’s house    an unlikely pistol
in his coat pocket    hoping to convince
& heal    only to be knifed to death?
Like the suburban mom    nailed into
a closet by her own boy    who    a few days
later will hack her & his dad to death?

As dumb as the Salvis    thinking it’s not that bad
that a lot of kids have a hard time adjusting
that maybe some    like their John    hear blackbirds
speaking. . . . And how dumb am I    trying
to save you?    But this is not intellect or smarts
this is etched into the brain    filaments    wires
running deeper than the need to flee:
the small animal    defending her young
against eyes bright & yellow    against tooth
& claw    a beast relentless    bigger than
we are    always.    Always waiting to spring. . . .