Sonnet for Desiree
Sonnet for Desiree Fairooz Prosecuted for Laughing at Jeff Sessions’ Confirmation Hearing
By Shane McCrae
“Jeff Sessions’ extensive record of treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”
—Senator Richard Shelby
America I’m laughing can you hear me
I’m laughing when I heard you say you weren’t
Racist because you shared a hotel room
On more than one occasion with a black
Lawyer I’m laughing while you worked to keep him
From voting can you hear me when I heard
You say you liked the KKK until
You learned the Knights smoke pot I’m laughing
America when I heard you say it was good
News for the South you are America
Good news for the South I’m laughing when I heard
You say that after the Supreme Court broke
The Voting Rights Act please tell it again
America tell me the one I’m living
Shane McCrae is the author of seven books of poetry: Sometimes I Never Suffered, to be published in spring, 2020, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux; The Gilded Auction Block; In the Language of My Captor, which won the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the William Carlos Williams Award; The Animal Too Big to Kill, winner of the 2014 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award; Forgiveness Forgiveness; Blood; and Mule. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.