10 6.12.22 Illustration by R. O. Blechman
on videos of his famous gaff es. The clips
included the extraordinary moment at a
2008 Baghdad news conference when an
incensed Iraqi journalist threw a pair of
shoes at the president. ‘‘I was very proud
of you for dodging those shoes,’’ Kimmel
said. ‘‘You have very good refl exes.’’
Several months later, a Bush speech
was interrupted by Mike Prysner, an
activist and Iraq veteran. ‘‘Mr. Bush, when
are you going to apologize to the million
Iraqis who are dead because you lied?’’
Prysner screamed. ‘‘You lied about weap-
ons of mass destruction!... My friends
are dead!’’ Prysner had planned to recite
some names of the dead, but he was hus-
tled out of the auditorium. In America,
we are not so good at truth and reconcil-
iation. We prefer Twitter dunks and yuks
on late-night TV.
In 2022, the United States is expe-
riencing a collective senior moment.
Our democracy is aging and enfeebled.
We began the century by imposing
regime change overseas; now we fend
off a putsch at our Capitol. Bush’s Iraq-
Ukraine fl ub is a marker of these tragic
follies and of the decline-and-fall trajec-
tory we appear to be traveling. It’s also
a reminder of how many people would
prefer to forget the Iraq debacle alto-
gether. The invasion did not, in fact, rest
on the decision of ‘‘one man.’’ Much of
Washington’s political class — Republi-
can and Democrat, neo-cons and liberal
hawks — backed the invasion and the
falsehoods that justifi ed it. These war
supporters shared a particular kind of
American hubris and naïveté, an eager-
ness to ignore the realpolitik behind
our interventions in the oil-rich Middle
East while intoning fi ne words about the
spread of freedom and democracy.
That message was impossible to escape
in the months before the invasion. We
decry Putin’s use of misinformation to
promote the assault on Ukraine. But
Bush’s drive to war was likewise accom-
panied by a propaganda push, and many
journalists and public intellectuals who
peddled that party line still occupy infl u-
ential posts. It is surely unpleasant for
them to be reminded of their misjudg-
ments. But the truth has a way of seeping
out, sometimes in unlikely places, like the
daises of presidential libraries. Call it a
Freudian slip or a brain freeze or history
having its revenge. Contrary to the Bush-
ism, the past is not — is never — over.
Th is poem tells the story of Inocencio Rodriguez, the author’s grandfather, who was murdered in 1971. It’s
a meditation on memory’s playback loop, as well as both the specifi c and general violence against immigrants and
people of color. Rocha’s images are askew and arresting — the ‘‘street hangs from the sky’’ and summer has
dark hair that is ‘‘lazily in a braid’’ — before the poem shifts to a home scene that propels us to a tragic ending
and ruminates on details leading to Rodriguez’s murder.Poem Selected by Victoria ChangThe Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez
By Iliana RochaThe street hangs from the sky, held in suspension
by summer’s dark hair lazily in a braid,
exhausted power lines. Someone has thrown a pair
of sneakers, joined together by knots,
over the wires, insistence of we walk away from.
Or declaration of staying’s ease. What’s gathered
overhead — recognition of a cloud-shaped hurt.
Happiness won’t fi nd a home here,
escapes through each home’s latticework like papel
picado chiseled down into a pair of doves.
Hanging on the wall of my grandmother’s kitchen,
a wooden scene of her kitchen, with its miniature pots & pans —
on the tiny table, a vase of daff odils given
to her before he left. This scene never
expands. It stays its little size, despite the trial &
want for it to expand beyond is diminutive
yellow. Can we reposition La Llorona’s creek behind
another house? What must stay pinned to the map
like a butterfl y: the view, the sugar factory where he worked
when he at last modifi ed Texas geography
to stretch all the way to Detroit
by letting his gun follow his steps in the grass.Screenland
Victoria Chang is a poet whose new book of poems is ‘‘ e Trees Witness Everything’’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). Her fi fth book of
poems, ‘‘Obit’’ (2020), was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in Antioch
University’s M.F.A. program. Iliana Rocha is a Tennessee-based poet whose latest collection is ‘‘ e Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez’’
(Tupelo Press, 2022), from which this poem is taken. It is her second book of poems.