10 8.23.
Trump’s response
to the virus is
similar in many
ways to the
country’s own
response to
Trump himself.Illustration by R. O. Blechmannow leaning on as a denominator to try
to shrink the comparative ratio of deaths.
And never mind that he had put himself
in the position of rejecting the idea that
counting dead versus living Americans
was a fair measure of his government’s
response. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘You can’t — you
can’t do that. You have to go by the cases.’’
He pointed to the bar graph in his hand.
The interview’s temperature was rising.
Swan brought up South Korea, which
at the time of the interview had about 300
deaths, compared with roughly 150,
in the United States. In other words, the
U.S., with six times as many people as
South Korea, had more than 500 times the
coronavirus casualties. ‘‘You don’t know
that,’’ Trump replied. He didn’t ask Swan
where he was getting his numbers from.
Instead, he asserted fl at-out that Swan
did not know. ‘‘I do,’’ Swan responded.
‘‘You don’t know that,’’ Trump repeated.
‘‘You think they’re faking their statistics?’’
Swan asked. ‘‘I won’t get into that,’’ Trump
answered, as though he were in the pos-
session of some secret proof. ‘‘I have a
very good relationship with the country.’’
For now, the South Korea statistic was nei-
ther right nor wrong. It was simply some-
thing Swan had said but did not ‘‘know.’’
Just in case anyone had been left uncon-
vinced, he repeated himself again. ‘‘You
don’t know that.’’
It’s worth considering the threshold that
Swan’s interruptions and eye-rolls high-
lighted with such clarity — the threshold of
what Trump is willing to acknowledge as
true. One thousand Americans dying each
day from the virus is something that he
can, with eff ort, be prodded into accept-
ing, because he is imaginative enough not
to see those deaths as refl ecting on the
competence of the president of the coun-
try in which they happened to take place.
It is what it is served to wash his hands of
any connection to them. The South Korea
comparison, on the other hand, implied a
responsibility that could not be evaded.
Therefore, it could not be metabolized by
Trump as fact. You don’t know that.
Trump’s response to the virus is sim-
ilar in many ways to the country’s own
response to Trump himself — scapegoat-
ing foreign powers, denials of responsi-
bility, overdue half-measures, rosy pre-
dictions that everything will return to
normal soon. For now, it is what it is may
defi ne the realistic ceiling of possible
American futures.
Th is poem had already been selected when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
expressed on the House fl oor her unforgettably powerful response to misogy nistic insult.
Now I read it with pride for brave people who speak out publicly for respect and
justice, for passionate poets like Alison Luterman, for the people who live through ‘‘every
kind of exile’’... for all the awkwardness of trying on ‘‘new wings.’’ And for a country
that has prided itself on being so forward-thinking without ever electing one of those girls
to be even vice president, much less president. Th is poem feels like an anthem
for ‘‘ferocious mercy’’ to come.Screenland
Poem Selected by Naomi Shihab NyeSome Girls
By Alison LutermanSome girls can’t help it; they are lit sparklers,
hot-blooded, half naked in the depths of winter,
tagging moving trains with the bright insignia of their
fury.
I’ve seen their inked torsos: falcons, swans, meteor
showers.
And shadowed their secret rendezvous,
walking and fl ying all night over paths traced like veins
through the deep body of the forest
where they are trying on their new wings,
rising to power with a ferocious mercy
not seen before in the cities of men.
Having survived slander, abuse, and every kind of exile,
they’re swooping down even now
from treetops where they were roosting,
wearing robes woven of spider webs and pigeon
feathers.
They have pulled the living child out of the fl ames
and are prepared to take charge through the coming
apocalypse.
I have learned that some girls are boys; some are birds,
some are oases ringed with stalking lions. See,
I cannot even name them,
although one of them is looking out through my eyes
right now,
one of them
is writing all this down with light-struck fi ngers.Naomi Shihab Nye is the Young People’s Poet Laureate of the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Her latest
book is ‘‘Cast Away,’’ from Greenwillow Books. Alison Luterman lives in Oakland, Calif., and teaches at the
Writing Salon in Berkeley. Her new book is ‘‘In the Time of Great Fires’’ (Catamaran Press, 2020).