Sarah Browning

Here on the nation’s lawn – women in saris
picnicking, men in red track pants running past
scrolling their phones – the squirrels are more
bold than the politicians: daring me to approach.
Truth taunts us as it melts away. We’re left
now a universal UH. Tell me a love story,
I overhear as a gaggle of teenagers lurches past.
And OK, I will: Here, kids in multi-colored
baseball caps, a tourist in fake pearls, a couple
fussing in Mandarin over their child’s stroller.
A lanky adolescent asks about truth, then grins
her mouthful of metal and wires. Soon her teeth
will be straighter than any talk in this town,
any line from now to hopefulness. How about
a story of joy? Come out to the front yard
where Madeleine from England tells me she
had to stop and ask, as she’d nowhere in her brain
to put what she was seeing, as all of us indeed.
Where Casey is helping passersby
understand: It used to say TRUTH, now
it says UH. The way we’re all stuck
saying Uh these days and Uh? and
What the uh? No chance of survival,
the ice melting, letter by letter crashing
to the pathway. What’s left: each other,
hand-holding, the ice cream truck trilling
“La Cucaracha,” dogs jogging by. She’s
perfect too: dog owners in praise. Silver bows
in Black girls’ hair. If they stepped out once –
the puling politicians, merchants of fear –
here’s what they’d see: so much human
color and ruckus, tattoos and PJ shorts.

Why not tell the truth?
We were beautiful.
We are beautiful.
We will be beautiful once more.