Show, Don't Tell
Americans are like two-year olds---
dazzled---
by bright pictures
of apples, dollars, guns, cars,
breasts and testicles.
Try to convey a thought--
In America, to live is to shop.
The world is no more cruel
than it ever was.
If good or evil could be predicted by skin color,
this country would make sense.--
And they shake the crib, cry, scream,
"Don't tell me anything.
Show me the pictures."
Daniel Garrett is a writer whose work has been published in American Book Review, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, World Literature Today, The African, Black American Literature Forum, Black Film Review, Changing Men, The Humanist, and the Quarterly Black Review of Books. He has written a novel, Heroes and Friends, and a play, An Enemy of the President.