Yesterday was a terrible day for our country. It is impossible for me to fathom how an entire political party could have eroded into a scrum of weak and fawning bootlickers--and for such a man! . . .  a petty, lying, cruel, selfish, stupid mafioso. And yet here we are.

Now, on this new morning, I sit in my little house and wonder what safety means, or will mean. I have been editing a novel about dictatorship and repression in 1970s Brazil: about police raids and torture and exile, about the terrible daily secrecy among loved ones--don't tell what you know or suspect or feel; ignorance is safety--how the larger repression became, for these individuals, a viperish isolation.

I have lived my entire life in a country that, in good ways and in terrible ways, was nonetheless sure of itself. Now nothing feels sure.

And here we sit, or lie, stand, or crouch, or kneel. Americans at the end of the empire, striking our everyday poses.


A Litany for Survival

Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.