Very Brave Men

Look at all the very brave men, body armour, masks & vans. Frog goes wobbling through the street. Might be bubbles. Might be cardboard. Might be someone filming there. Hard to look like stormtroopers fighting costumes full of air. Very brave men. All that armour in the rain. Sidewalk full of witnesses. Better write down every name. She lifts a phone. Their lenses answer. Face scan finds her in the crowd. One car follows her back home. Agents photograph the house. Very brave men watch the women: victims witnessing victims. Geary Act: papers or prison. Chinese people jailed. Fifty years on—Japanese Americans, fenced away. The Fourth Circuit names the stain. No allegory. It’s in the case. Treaties came before the flag. Nations sliced by settler borders, drawn by men who wanted land. Jackson’s trick: make staying hell, then say they chose to leave. Old “Indian strategy.” New federal vans. “Un-American.” In the Americas. Means you won’t obey some substandard white man the government pays to wear a badge. Manifest Destiny didn’t die. It got direct deposit. “We’re fighting human trafficking.” Great. Prosecutions hit a sixteen-year low. Move the agents to immigration. A trafficking survivor checks in. ICE locks her up. Any actual traffickers nervous yet? Snatch hundreds of children, some too young to say their names. Five hundred babies, toddlers passed through ICE detention. One child left saying only “mom” & “dad.” “Family values.” Nice slogan. Looks different through the gate. No clever turn— just children learning what a locked door means. Fort Bliss: five thousand under canvas. Families search the locator. Lawyers find they’ve moved again. Geraldo Lunas Campos: homicide by asphyxia. Witnesses said he couldn’t breathe. No allegory. That’s the death certificate. Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Two more names after gunfire. Renee’s wife beside the car. A woman dead. Then somebody says: “Fucking bitch.” Misogyny said its own name. Film the raid. Their cameras answer. Watch the agents. They follow home. Church meetings under surveillance. If your badge can’t stand a camera, why are you hiding your face? Missing, murdered, terrorized; trafficked, detained, surveilled. Women watched for watching back. Native nations asked for papers. Babies behind gates. Frog back under floodlights. Rain runs silver down the street. Phones rise from every doorway. Witnesses remember names. Power hates an audience— so the whole street watches back. Very brave men. Keep marching for the cameras. History keeps the footage— now keeps 2️⃣6️⃣ names (& counting) Careful with the frog. He’s armed with witnesses.