ignoring the sounds

If hitler were to return today,
my scarred face wouldn’t be to his liking,
and he definitely wouldn’t fancy you—
what, with the melanin and all—
i’m sure he’d return to driving his machine
of war, cleansing the earth of races obscene.
stamping countries like envelopes with the swastika,
his fun-sized-snicker mustache chortling at the myriad thwarted.
we'd get it like the rest of them...

while we waited for our imminent demise,
my foot would be saying hello to yours,
unwrapping you from a package of sleep.
you’re not awake enough for me to ask
if you want potatoes for breakfast, but I ask anyway,
our bedroom air filled with diner idiom,
ignoring the sounds outside our windows,
of innocents getting yanked and plugged like chords.
our neighborhood becoming a ghetto,
bricks and mortar making it so.