it seems a pretty mild thing, but mildness, caring, and protection are radical political acts now, even if they are only a fading message on a sticker on a footbridge over a roaring highway. the sticker could not even find sanctuary here and now, where and when sanctuary, the very notion, is an affront to democracy.

my heart flips back to a memory of beth dun, my mom's so called conservative friend, angrily ripping off the peace flag sticker from the blue wagon we proudly rode in which was subsequently crushed on the congress expressway, totalled, my sister folded unconscious under the fold down back seat. i think of that car further crushed into a cube and stacked in a wall of crushed vehicles, with it's forlornly torn peace flag pulverized in the late window.

the circuitous paths the heart follows.