Lake Michigan, Scene 6
Lake Michigan, Scene 6
By Daniel Borzutzky
The golden sand of Lake Michigan was here
The chromium spilled from the US Steel plant in Portage,
Indiana was here
The raw sewage was here
The animal waste was here
The waters that in the sunlight reminded Simone de Beauvoir
of silk and flashing diamonds were here
The seagulls were here
The liquid manure was here
The birds colonized by E.coli were here
The police removing the homeless bodies on the beach were
here
The police removing the illegal immigrants on the beach were
here
The police beating the mad bodies on the beach were here
The public hospitals were not here and the police had
nowhere to take the sick ones to so they kicked
them in the face handcuffed them and took them to jail
A woman screamed and the external police review board
heard nothing
No one heard the woman screaming and no one saw the
children vomiting
No vomiting children wrote the external review board no
dead or decaying animals
The members of the external police review board belong to the
Democratic party and they love to play with their children on
the beach
They belong to the ACLU and they love to play with their pets
on the beach
They volunteer at their kids’ schools and they don’t believe in
the bones of the disappeared
The pigs colonized by E.coli were here
The cattle colonized by E.coli were here
The humans colonized by E.coli were here
The police were here and they murdered two boys and the
external police review board saw nothing
Daniel Borzutzky’s latest poetry collection is Lake Michigan (Pitt Poetry Series, 2018). He is the author of The Performance of Becoming Human (Brooklyn Arts Press), recipient of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry. His translation of Galo Ghigliotto’s Valdivia (Co-im-press) won the American Literary Translator’s Association 2017 National Translation Award. He lives in Chicago.