World Citizen
Mary Winters
Local landmark: United Nations.
Which puts you in the center of a
bull’s-eye for nuclear attack
when some world-maddened leader’s
knack for symbolism lets loose on
those thousands upon thousands of
daffodils, U.N. park in spring,
which you are more than welcome
to look at -- apply your
own symbolism to -- take your
wedding pictures here -- but don’t
touch: signs say in twenty languages
don’t walk on the grass. No lunch
eating, check your bags at the gate;
the guards have guns, make no
exceptions...so it’s really not
a park, your son said.
Local landmark which puts you in
the center of daily protests: crying
women, yelling men; always the same
over-exposed blown-up photos no matter
what the country: naked bodies of
tortured sons, dead girls run over by
tanks; or mock-ups with dummies --
how dissenters are cruelly executed in
that not-so-far-away land. Once you
dropped a bundle of husband’s shirts
near the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial
on your way to the Chinese laundry.
Whistling guard caught up with you,
returned them to your tote with a
cheerful swing -- “Have a nice day!”
...how do you know I’m so innocent.
