I-94

the construction workers rolled in 

with their war machines (cranes like

siege towers / cement mixers full of

permanence) in a grand charade

that the whole city bought into

that this battle would be an even one

but in the end all the foreman had to do

was crack the whip and Old Rondo

split in two / people scattered like ants

the neighborhood packed its bags

and left its ghost to hover there

left the wound to become a scar

fifty years later after a man was shot

two miles from my home

people raising signs gathered across the I-94

and I began to understand what protest was

how it was just humans bridging old wounds

with their bodies / how the whip could

lose its power if people learned to understand

how like ants they could be / boundless in resilience

when they gathered to fill a black hole

and the construction workers

(still puzzled over how to build a bridge)

are still present though dead / now they work

desk jobs / and when they turn on the news

after work they put on their hard hats

and stuff their ears with cotton

to drown out the sound of sirens