Safety Instructions

Don’t be Jewish if you have a choice.
Don’t.

Anything anyone can blame you for,
they will.

It might get better for a while. And as my friend said
after George Floyd died

and all the corporations went black for a minute,
We’ll see. He meant, It’ll go back.

Maybe not as far. Maybe farther.
But you don’t have a choice really, do you?

Hiding is never an option.
Or it is, but it’ll cost you.

So don’t be Jewish, okay? Don’t be
Muslim or Black or Asian. Don’t forget.

Don’t be queer in certain countries
but you won’t know which.

Don’t have hair. Or a nose. Or a family
name or a first name. Don’t be proud.

Don’t be Palestinian and don’t live in Gaza
or Ukraine or in a country

or in no country.
These are not equivalents, they are exposures.

Don’t have a body, for a body is visible, vulnerable,
shootable, stabbable, bombable, or less violently shamed.

Don’t be a person.
For a person can be hurt.

Except a predator. Don’t be
a predator, for a predator is the calcified operator

emerging from the prey. Don’t be prey.
Horses are prey. Lambs. Children of all kinds. Cubs.

Don’t be young. Or very old.
Don’t be slow. Or disabled or in pain.

Don’t be an animal.
A bird. A turtle. A rhinoceros.

Don’t be shot.
Don’t shoot.