AP photo
By
Alejandro Escudé
Rundown
Let him refuse. Let him live just out of reach.
The noose has a life of its own and gravitates
Toward the less powerful. It’s pyramid-sound.
Let him keep floating along the bulrushes.
Erroneous-me. The buzzing the phones made.
Oh happy sage! They would police-stage you,
They would offer you Trump-head Pez-candies.
There’s no Hawaii. There’s only Kurt Cobain’s
Shotgun lying on the floor. So don’t you do it!
Don’t give them the rundown, what the finger-
Bones thought just before the alert went out,
Shaking the non-voters, the politicos, the snakes.
Snake after snake after snake—and now they
Want you. For what? What can you answer
That a snot-nosed software engineer cannot?
Submit to nothing that cannot be evinced.
Based on the employee refusing to talk to the FCC about the erroneous alert in Hawaii
Alejandro Escudé
Alejandro Escudé’s first book of poems, My Earthbound Eye, was published in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.