written for Harper Lee’s 100th birthday
I climb inside
my MAGA neighbor's head
to see his world ...
a mockingbird's song snaps
in two through half-sleep
Note: In Ls 1-3, the speaker’s attempt to “climb inside / of my MAGA neighbor’s head” mirrors Atticus Finch’s ethic of radical empathy: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it,” which the tanka re-stages as a dreamlike, unstable act of perception.
