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To the Moreno Valley Cop who Pointed a Gun at Me

By Paul Hlava Ceballos

Say it to me again, I dare you,
any small word, slipped through a sidearm’s
sight—I am not a child anymore.

A “park hours” sign is all we needed
for the patrol car’s spotlight honey-glazing
glossy eucalyptus leaves to fuck off.

I’m sick of authority’s myth of public safety.
Which of us is in danger here?
A proud stray parades its unzipped gopher.

Sunset’s slow dust-devil turns out
the grassy lot’s golden pockets
while sidewalk gridlines impress my face.

Someday, I will gift your humanity back
by ending you. Love commences
its careful promise to burn.
 

 

 

Listen as Paul Hlava Ceballos reads To the Moreno Valley Cop who Pointed a Gun at Me .
Added: Friday, September 27, 2024  /  Used with permission.
Paul Hlava Ceballos
Photo by Tasha Nicole Uria

Paul Hlava Ceballos is the author of banana [ ], winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His collaborative chapbook, Banana [ ] / we pilot the blood, shares pages with Quenton Baker and Christina Sharpe. He has a fellowship from CantoMundo and has been featured on The Poetry Magazine Podcast. He currently lives in Seattle, where he is the Poetry Editor of the Seattle Met and practices echocardiography.

Image Description: Paul Hlava Ceballos, a bearded man wearing a gray shirt, is standing in the desert in front of a blue sky and cacti.

Other poems by this author

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