I was driving the first time I heard Joan Osborne sing One of Us. Her voice came pouring out of my tinny car radio and instantly I knew this would be one of the songs of my life, like Fast Car by Tracy Chapman (and, yes, Alison by Elvis Costello). I think of One of Us to myself a lot these days, like last week when ICE hauled a man out of his car in front of the Walker Art Center, his terrified wife screaming and screaming, and when the working, nursing mother of an infant was held in jail for three weeks because she mistakenly didn’t show up for a court appointment eight years ago when she was a teen. It’s delusional to think they won’t be coming for you and me. We’re all one.
A Scandal in the Suburbs, by X.J. Kennedy
We had to have him put away,
For what if he’d grown vicious?
To play faith healer, give away
Stale bread and stinking fishes!
His soapbox preaching set the tongues
Of all the neighbors going.
Odd stuff: how lilies never spin
And birds don’t bother sowing.
Why, bums were coming to the door—
His pockets had no bottom—
And then-the foot-wash from that whore!
We signed. They came and got him.
Click here for more information about X.J. Kennedy. This poem first appeared in New and Selected Poems, 1955-2007, published in 2007 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Alison McGhee 
Wow ~ I’ve loved X. J. Kennedy’s poems for children for years…I’ve never read his adult poetry. This one’s amazing.
My generation didn’t have polio or a war on our soil. I didn’t risk my life during the Civil Rights
era. It’s our turn. As Mario Savio said,”There comes a time when…you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”
What a time we’re living in, what a time. It’s going to take years, but we are rising to the challenge.
Thank you, Alison.
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Wow ~ I’ve loved X. J. Kennedy’s poems for children for years…I’ve never read his adult poetry. This one’s amazing.
My generation didn’t have polio or a war on our soil. I didn’t risk my life during the Civil Rights era. It’s our turn. As Mario Savio said,”There comes a time when…you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”
What a time we’re living in, what a time. It’s going to take years, but we are rising to the challenge.
Thank you, Alison.
LikeLike