On Helplessness

by Jeremy Radin

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Today I saw a video of a man brandishing a baton
at a frightened family to keep them from entering,
after an afternoon of shopping, a parking structure,
because he & some other q-anon people had set up
a “defensive perimeter” around it while quarreling
with some antifascists, hurling bricks & fireworks
against each other’s makeshift riot shields outside
a mall in Kansas. I thought of you, the way you,
with such effulgent & ridiculous candor, upon​
losing your patience, would squat down & place
your hands on the earth & breathe in very deeply,
& when I’d ask what you were doing you told me
rooting out the frequency underneath our ruthless
frequencies & then you seemed to find it & closed
your eyes & let all of the air fall out of your mouth
like coils of piano wire for I want to say five or six
minutes, the pain pooling in thick strands around
your hands & feet, & I was astounded how absurd
you looked, absorbed in your silly ritual, making
such a spectacle of your self-care. & then there
was the evening we heard shouting & crashing
in the apartment above. We knocked on the door
& a college girl answered with blood in her eye,
her boyfriend skulking around behind her, I think
I could have handled him but you pulled him into
a strange embrace & we took the girl outside & she
said she should have asked before using his printer
& though we pleaded with her she told us not to
call the cops & we didn’t & she went back up.

---

​Jeremy Radin is a writer, actor, and teacher. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Ploughshares, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Offing, The Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of two collections of poetry: Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) and Dear Sal (Not A Cult, 2022). He is the founder and operator of Lanternist Creative Consulting, through which he coaches writers and performers. He likes to point at birds and try to remember their names. Follow him @germyradin

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