The Dante Poem to End Dante Poems, BY ANTHONY SUTTON

 You might think it has to do with fire,
which means it’s time to drown.
 
Of course there are bodies of water in Dante,
some for crying and some for cleansing.
 
You might think a Dante poem is all hell
and white people, and, yes, or as I call it,
 
the Midwest where the riots started,
specifically in Minneapolis. The internet
 
is flooded with bricks thrown at a Target window.
Police cars set ablaze. Some people drown
 
crying to protect property, which is somewhat concerning
since they didn’t have much to say
 
when video footage of George Floyd being murdered
hit the internet, but OK. When I moved
 
to Indiana I passed through St. Louis
the week Mike Brown was shot.
 
The state patrol had taken over, which meant
no more tanks, no more tear gas. Agents sat in a van
 
and watched from a couple blocks away.
In the seventh circle of hell, sodomites run
 
in circles across burning sand, though this sounds
like normal life to me. The painful repetitions.
 
I had the thought that time was like flowing water,
rising and sinking in intervals, but maybe
 
time is like a stag, charging through a field.
She has her spot where she likes to graze.

When she looks, she looks with her eyes and horns.

Anthony Sutton resides on former Akokiksas, Atakapa, Karankawa, and Sana land (currently named Houston, TX) and has had poems appear or forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, Indianapolis Review, Grist, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Passages North, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Quarter After Eight, and elsewhere.