When the TSA Sexually Assaults
its sly on their part,
a slash to the groin,
a cuff of the penis,
and if you complain
they say, “We have
to do this” and if
you ask for a super-
visor, you are given
a little postcard
to “write down
the events” for
the world to read
as it goes from
carrier to carrier
announcing how
you have been
humiliated. I
know that the
TSA agent looked
up at me, my groin
in his hand and
he had this look of
power that said,
“You will always
be hated here,”
eyes that said
with Trump as
president we
don’t need
ethics, only
the rape of
war.
I’m Middle Eastern
and not Middle Eastern.
I’m Jewish
and not Jewish.
I’m white
and not white.
I’m indigenous
and very indigenous.
I’m multiracial
and, in the time
of Trump, I am
supposed to ass-
imilate, annihilate
the self to become
as white as corpse
skin, the way
it blanches,
rigor mortis
of ethnicity.
In Class, I Say That I Went to a Republican Lecture
given by a couple of the inside men
in the Trump administration
to see what they talk about
and they talked about
how there will be more arrests,
how they will weed out the Muslims
and that the Muslims are “weeds,”
are drug-infested and like the cartels,
and the speech went in directions
beyond north, south, east, and west;
the rant went up and down, down, down,
into the shores of hell and it ended
with the crowd chanting, “No more immigrants,
no more immigrants, no more immigrants”
and the lead speaker silenced them
and said, smiling, that they could expect
arrests, more arrests, mass incarceration
that would make this country free.
I tell this to my class on Islam
and there is a pause and a student
raises his hand and the professor
calls on him and the student takes his time,
talking very slowly, saying that it is wicked
to talk about radical Republicans,
that most Republicans are good,
and that none of that represents conservatives.
And then class ended.
And on the news, all week long,
I watched the mass arrests in Illinois,
in Georgia,
in North Carolina,
in South Carolina,
in Indiana,
in Kansas,
in Kentucky,
in Missouri,
in Wisconsin.
Ron Riekki's books include U.P.: a novel (Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read nominated), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book from the Library of Michigan and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award/Grand Prize shortlist, Midwest Book Award, Foreword Book of the Year, and Next Generation Indie Book Award), Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).