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Optimum Condition


by Emily Hopkins


I have hate and it is black
not midnight, crisp fresh clear.
Unadulterated.
It is dirty, poor, gritty
solid rough like unripe stone fruit.
A peach, mealy and dry.

The killing, effete, endures.
Silent,
my repugnance,
sick,
eats from me.
Injures.
Black pit cavity.
Flesh breakdown.

Soldiers are shipped fresh fruit on the Iraq battleground.
Another death toll rotting in banana peels,
discarded, but 200 percent fresher.

And the President commands remembrance to those who have died.
Because
it is the right thing to do, to those who died.
We have to
show
support.

I stood on Washington.
In target of black-dressed slips of men
waiting on the roof of the White House.
With their guns,
pointed.

I stood
for peace.
And was watched.
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