and every man standing
demanding those coloreds, the sutters,
get out of town,
and the hirshes,
worse for the hirshes,
who stained a pure
christian woman
by mixing their jew selves
up with her.
but the shoe man and his kid, they’re just living there.
in private, harvey pettibone handed me rat poison
from his store.
pour it in sutter’s well,
he said.
but it’ll kill them!
no, he said, though
it will make them pretty
sick.
and he didn’t look too happy about any of it,
but the exalted cyclops was looking on
so harvey pushed the poison at me.
that’s when the roar started inside my head.