OntheWilderSide

Inhuman

An abundance of flesh on the cover of a magazine
captures my attention
as I stand on the checkout line.

But, at the same time I am noticing
the vibrant ribbon of living flesh
in organic shades of pink and brown and yellow
my heart sinks
as the reality of the photo surfaces.

I realize there are hundreds or thousands
of men in that one photo.
All of their heads are shaved completely bald and
they are doubled over in such an uncomfortable way
they look like twisted, inhuman creatures
traveling across a cement forest in a fairy tale.

And, the thousands of them,
are being watched over by
men dressed head-to-toe in heavy black uniforms,
carrying guns, and forcing the subjugated men
to look down at the ground.

Who has created this place?

No human should be in this place.

The first time I saw this photo,
was October of 2024
on a rack in my local supermarket.

At home,
I look up details.
I uncover the country where it is taking place,
but, it is nowhere I can remember.

The story is so unconnected to anything else
happening in my country or my world,
I set it aside like the story of a flood, or an earthquake, or a fire
in some faraway land,
some horror for which I always wish to make a donation
or send some relief, but never seem to be able.

How much suffering must we see
before we abandon the ones who are suffering?

The image of the young men,
bent over like animals, appears in my dreams,
in more and more abstract combinations,
until it fades altogether,
flushed in the process,
in the consciousness of my dreams
to protect me from the feeling I had
that it was my shoulders that were being pressed down.

My summary becomes:
I glanced over at the magazine rack
and then
the young person
at the checkout
dropped a bag of apples
and a carton of ice cream in my bag.

Until a long time later.
Until many months later on
March 15th, 2025.

This time it is a video
of all the worse horrors from the first image.
There are many men in the background
but one man is not just crouched over
he is kneeling in an awkward position
held half in the air by one of the men in black uniforms
and they are shaving his hair off.

First we see the beautiful part of the flowing locks
of a young man fall to the ground,
and then they keep shaving down
until his head is bald and vulnerable
like the rest of his half-naked body.

Now, my attention is torn away
not just to the far away country
(whose name I still have trouble calling to mind)
but to the moment when I first saw the photo.

It has come back to me.

In the streets around me,
in cities and places I know the names of,
in places I have visited, in places I have cousins in,
men and women in black clothes with guns
have rounded up my neighbors.

They have rounded up people from my own country.

They have taken people so close to me that
the photograph of confiscated flesh
has escaped my nightmares
and reconstituted itself into a
reality of pain and fear on the
landscape of my American dream

No human should be in this place.

_______________________________

Poem by Kimberly Wilder
onthewilderside.com
georgianacircle.wordpress.com

With thanks to Noah Lanard of Mother Jones for the quote:
“No human should be in this place”

Filed under: poetry, politics, president, presidential, progressive politics, US Politics Tagged: | Bring Kilmar Home, CECOT, El Salvador Prison, immigration issues, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, kimberly wilder, Long Island poets, poems about immigrants, poems about immigration, poetry, Political Poetry, President Trump, Supreme Court decisions