There was the day I was tired blue bone beat oxygen deprived lack of sleep dove for a seat. Sat. Met no eye. Mute morning willed myself to work. Doh-des-kah-den train trotted track toward Manhattan. Then a note thin exquisite scissored air. Lifted my head. Five gnarled nubs fingered fiddle neck right hand bowed Stradivarian pecs. Then a voice.

                This is a country where there can be a
                Ku Klux Klan and the hooded are treated
                as mere crackpots, as if their business isn't
                snapping Black necks routine as cooks
                snap peas at the kitchen sink, as though
                this were not lynch land. But it is. Where an
                athletic team, the national pastime, no less,
                can be named for death squads that
                hunted Mexicans and stole their land,