Steve Straight Lachrymose –Summer, 2020 Every day now begins with tears. As soon as I am upright, a tear forms in my left eye and will keep doing so the rest of the day no matter how many times I dab it with my shirtsleeve. They tell me it’s actually “dry eyes,” somehow, as if denying the liquid before their eyes, that my tears may be of poor quality and my lacrimal gland is overcompensating. But these are the same eyes that see the news each morning, that read of peaceful protestors sprayed nightly with federal tear gas, that watch as leaders turn a blind eye, that witness the eye of our national storm. And since I cannot touch my face the few times I am out and about, for fear of contamination, the tears trickle down for all to see, and no amount of cotton or tissue can stanch how I feel as with my good eye I see this vale of tears now in sharp relief.
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