#FlattenTheCurve: Send a Breeze by Don E. Walicek

Send me a breeze, evil virus
Air for souls like Eric Garner and Jamal Khashoggi
Like your victims, they whispered I can’t breathe in the final moment
Their words sought to suspend death, to sustain life

Bow to the black flag of Puerto Rico’s Calle de la Resistencia
Send me a breeze, evil virus
for Pedro Pietri’s Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel
Like your victims, they whispered I can’t breathe in the final moment

Fly unbridled by debt with steeds wild and free
Bow to the black flag of Puerto Rico’s Calle de la Resistencia
Witness the endangered ancient miracle that creates itself anew
for Pedro Pietri’s Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel

Seek out the Willomore Cedars of Africa’s southernmost cape
Fly unbridled by debt, with steeds wild and free
Dwell in their shadows until fire forces their cones to open
Witness the endangered ancient miracle that creates itself anew

Send us a breeze
that stirs the mind and releases our destructive grip
Shed your coat, bare your genes, and witness
love, the endangered ancient miracle that creates itself anew

Don Edward Walicek is a professor of linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. His publications include the volume Guantánamo and American Empire; The Humanities Respond (Palagrave Macmillan 2018), which he co-edited with Jessica Adams. In 2019 he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. He serves as editor of the journal Sargasso.