CALLED
(for
Medea Benjamin)
To peel away the blur of a kill
called a bugsplat on
the screen
and see beneath it the dead & maimed,
to recognize the fleeing squirters
as having lives and the right to a hearing,
to kettle the truths
of these situations
and bring their boiling to a point:
these are strategies and stratagems
borne to us by euphemism’s art
in the force of metaphors
many of my students learn before
they come to class on the GI Bill
and there unlearn the lying in this
name game.
