We Would Never Sleep

We the people, we the one
times 320 million, I’m rounding up, there’s really
too many grass blades to count,
wheat plants to tally, just see
the whole field swaying from here to that shy
blue mountain. Swaying
as in rocking, but also the other
definition of the verb: we sway, we influence,
we impress. Unless we’re asleep,
the field’s asleep, more a postcard
than a real field, portrait of the people
unmoved. You know that shooting last week?
I will admit the number dead
was too low to startle me
if you admit you felt the same,
and the person standing by you
agrees, and the person beside that person.
It has to be double digits,
don’t you think? To really
shake up your afternoon? I’m troubled by
how untroubled I felt, my mind’s humdrum
regarding the total coffins, five
if you care to know, five still
even if you don’t. I’m angry
I’m getting used to it, the daily
gunned down, pop-pop on Wednesday,
Thursday’s spent casings
pinging on the sidewalk. It all sounds
so industrial, there’s nothing metal
that won’t make a noise, I’m thinking every gun
should come with a microphone,
each street with loudspeakers
to broadcast their banging.
We would never sleep, the field
always awake, acres of swaying
up to that shy blue mountain, no wonder
why it cowers on the horizon, I mean
look at us, look with the mountain’s eyes
we the people
putting holes in the people.

Copyright Credit: "We Would Never Sleep" from Dear, Sincerely, by David Hernandez, © 2016. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.