Cuffed
The police are taking him to a white van,
his hands zip-tied behind his back.
This is what I see on Instagram: my son
in a yellow Say No to Fossil Fuels t-shirt,
wood beads around his neck, his hair
dripping sweat. Police in riot helmets
with guns. He’s being arrested again
outside Citibank’s revolving door. Fear
clenches my throat, its claws long and sharp,
like the claws on the giant snapping turtle
I saw climb out of the hot bog muck
last week. Warrior, lugging its scuffed armor,
unable to shut out harm. Its eyes are
cupped by three pairs of lids, perfect for closing tight.
A 2023 New Jersey Council on the Arts Poetry Fellow, Robin Rosen Chang is the author of the full-length collection, The Curator’s Notes (Terrapin Books). Her poetry has appeared recently in Alaska Quarterly Review, New Ohio Review, and Plume and has also been featured on Verse Daily. She teaches writing at Montclair State University.
Read more Letters to America in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance and Democracy, published by Trinity University Press in collaboration with Terrain.org.
Header photo by Jack Bulmer, courtesy Pixabay.
