Manuel Rez
Keep your eyes down son
To get to the end of the line
Limit your eye contact
and you’ll be fine.
Remember mother’s stories
One ticket for me
My first trip to the city of apathy
Son, see the old man vomiting
his nonsensical-sensical views.
Ramblings about the deaths on the news.
In between a prejudice or two
I hear him say
“Divide then confuse.”
A corduroy suit and unshaved face make him
not quite a professor not yet a madman.
Son, know he hates the world for its imagined sin,
watch him turn his head and grin.
“It’s like a war zone out there, look—”
AWAY from me if you know what’s good.
Son, keep eye contact with the blurring hood.
“He’s like a heroin addict with money.”
Son, stand your ground if fists start to fly—
AWAY from me, please,
tell me we’re at my stop, please, I need to go.
Sixty minutes spent listening brings no ease
“Rats: that’s what’s out there, you, know?”