Before Fascism Came to America

Image credit: Boston Public Library

Published in Dissident Voice.

Before fascism came to America, I imagined
lives lived surreptitiously, resistance fighters
drinking harsh red wine in stone-flagged
kitchens at night by flickering firelight;

I saw members of the early Church huddled
in small rooms, whispering words of an illegal
liturgy, knowing the arrests would come later
in the darkness, that death would follow.

I didn’t realize that in all these dramatic moments
landlords still required rent to be paid; groceries
had to be bought; clothes needed to be washed.
The economic flow of life didn’t care who

called the shots. Only that, even once subdued,
the population kept the wheels turning.
Before fascism came to America I believed
every underground moment was suspenseful,

filled with fear and courage and self-sacrifice.
But the sun shines on grief and pain and forced
servitude just as it does on memories of a better
time, and what I understood (when fascism

came to America) was how normal life can seem
on the outside, that dramatic moments happen
in the midst of worrying about laundry
and we don’t even know they’re there.