A road runs down Harvard called Massachusetts Avenue as if
we own the whole state. Because we do. We took the land
from its people. Violently. And who is we? Ambulances
burn red nightly-casual outside the window of this pale yellow
building opposite the smaller university hospital. The red
reminds me of a different kind of burning. Of bodies.
Wonderful cremations of us down that tree over there next
to the libraries that now belong to us. And who is us?
I am reminded of the burning because the red is part
of the white and the blue and the sirens and the men
launching out of their cars with faces saying, in strange
tongues, strange indeed, And who
are you?