Something We Don’t Have a Word For Yet
John Biguenet
source: Politico
“We have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants. I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log.”
-- Trump Administration Federal Prosecutor
Sometimes in the street, in Naples or Rome,
you’ll see a young woman walking your way
who draws her scarf tight as the two of you pass
over a scar from her lips to her ear.
They call it sfregio. It’s the term Romans use
when a lover, rejected and wanting revenge,
slips his knife in the mouth of a woman he loved
and splays open her cheek with a flick of his wrist.
It shouldn’t surprise us a culture that old
would have learned just how heartless a human can be
and by now have a word for something as cruel
as slashing the face of a beautiful girl.
A republic like ours, though, as young as it is,
has not had the time yet to name all those things
that define who we are and how we behave—
but sooner or later, we’ll find the right words.
For instance, I wonder what term we will use
for the pleasure some take when a youngster is caged
or a baby is ripped from his mother’s embrace
or some other new cruelty’s imposed by the State.
We know what to call them; the polls make that clear.
It’s the pleasure they savor in seeing such things
that we have no name for, no word to express
their enjoyment in hearing the desolate wail
of a child with brown skin all alone in a cage
or a parent, distraught, dragged away by police.
(Of course, they maintain they’re upholding the law,
but their cheers at their rallies make plain what they feel.)
The Germans, I think, once had such a word,
but we need a term of our own to express
the deep satisfaction such Americans get
from gouging a scar on the heart of a child.
John Biguenet has published ten books and had six plays widely produced; his books and plays have been translated into a dozen languages. The winner of an O. Henry Award for short fiction and past president of the American Literary Translators Association, he lives in New Orleans. More info at www.biguenet.com.