DAWNN LEWIS

Night of the unrest,
I was at a screening in Santa Monica.
The week before,
the radio was stolen out of my car.
At the screening, there’s no TV,
nobody really knows what’s up.
I leave the screening around eleven o’clock,
with no idea what’s happening,
except I knew the verdict came down
and I’m feeling real sick to my stomach at this point.
And I’m driving back to Pasadena on the 10 . . .
and I see this black towering mass
on the freeway right in front of me,
a huge, black funnel, like, I’m not shittin’ you,
someone just let some evil genie out of a bottle,
and I’m all, “Fuck me, it’s a tornado!
There’s a fucking tornado in L.A.!”
And I’m freaking out!
Then I see another one, next to it, another one.
Then I realize: no; that’s smoke; the city’s on fire;
and then I see it’s only burning on my right, south of the 10,
in the black part of town.
And when I understand this . . .
I feel those tornadoes lifting up my car
and spinning me in space and
I’m part of this terrifying wind blowing all our hopes away:
the firestorm in the neighborhood
full of old hatreds,
left over anxiety from the Watts riots,
years of blame and disappointment,
swirling all together in a huge funnel of air,
black and thick, taking me to some anti-Oz
where the yellow brick road’s red with blood
and tornadoes don’t stop spinning,
and they spin continuously,
to this day, to this minute,
and all I want to do is spin around,
throwing curses and venom in every direction,
at everyone who’s forgotten . . .