A man unzipping his fly is vulnerable to attack.

Then the zipper got stuck.

An angel flies in the window to unstick it.

A drone was monitoring all this

In real time

And it appears on a monitor on Mars,

Though of course with a relay delay.

One of the monitors at the Mars base drone station

Is carefully considering all your moves for terror output.

But not to worry. Forget about about about it.

The body of the man you were

Has disappeared inside the one you wear.

Reminds me of the story of the man who had nipples

Where his elbows should be and whose skeleton

Was on the outside of his body.

The guy walks into a shop on Madison to buy some clothes

And buys some and walks out wearing them

Wearing them and into the Carlyle bar.

One of the waiters, originally from Algeria of all places,

Recognizes him and says with the strong accent

He has despite many years of living in the United States:

Your usual?

A man has disappeared inside his corpse.

His corpse has disappeared inside a cause.

Reminds me of the video of Robert Kennedy

Announcing to a largely black audience at an outdoor campaign rally

At night in Indianapolis

That Martin Luther King had been shot

And killed and by a white man.

Martin Luther King is dead.

Skin color is the name.

Skin color is the game.

Skin color is to blame for Ferguson, Missouri.

The body of the man you were

Has disappeared inside the one you wear.

I wouldn’t want to be a black man in St. Louis County.

A man unzipping his fly is vulnerable to attack.

Then the zipper got stuck.

An angel flies in the window to unstick it.

Here comes light-skinned Billie Holiday, Lady Day, no angel!

A drone was monitoring all this,

Which appears on a monitor on Mars,

Though of course with a relay delay.

One of the monitors at the Mars base drone station

Is carefully considering all your moves for terror output.

But not to worry.

Fuhgeddaboudit.

Reminds me of the story of the man whose smile

Shot out flames and whose skin

Was on the outside of his body.

The guy walks naked into a shop on Madison Avenue to buy some clothes

And buys some and walks out on fire wearing them and goes straight

Across the street in flames to the Carlyle bar.

One of the waiters looks as if he’s having a stroke

And raises his hands in Arabic,

Palms in, and murmurs a prayer,

And brings God a glass of humble water.

You can change

From chasing Communists

And chasing Jimmy Hoffa, the mobster union president

Who however supported civil rights,

And change to blessing and being blessed.

Some victims change from a corpse to a cause.

You can change

Reminds me of the video of Robert Kennedy

Announcing to a largely black audience at an outdoor campaign rally

At night in Indianapolis

That Martin Luther King had been shot

And killed and by a white man.

Martin Luther King is dead.

Frederick Seidel received the 2014 Hadada Prize. This poem will appear in our Winter Issue, available next month.