They begin by taking away our language. America tears babies

from their mothers. They become tender age children, complicit
in their parents’ illegal pilgrimage. The White House summons an alternative

truth. A television anchor cries falsehood. He is being kind, if not complicit;
it is a lie. Spokespersons spin the same doublespeak:

A propagandist becomes a pundit. When a judge is complicit,
no means yes means anal. By now you know what happens in America

does not stay in America. A one-way getaway to Hawaii is complicit:
firepower for narcos, a round of golf with Marcos. Our dictators

take a cue from that playbook. The headlines betray another accomplice—
A ‘former president’ faces plunder charges. There were no skeletons

in his closet, only thousands of shoes belonging to his complicit
wife. A ‘former first lady’ is convicted of graft. The ‘late leader of state’

gets a heroes’ burial. When you take a word and water it to complicity,
does it grow or wash out? A drug suspect is neutralized, meaning, escorted

to rehab. Or neutralized, meaning, arrested. Or neutralized, meaning complicit
with his companions’ crimes, meaning: dead. Extrajudicial killings are homicides

are deaths under investigation. Complicity conflates—even Congress
finds that indigenous people are communists, the communists, terrorists.

It considers censorship an edit. I do not want to be complicit.
The job costs more than it pays. Changing headlines, I backspace Regine

and slap on staff. Another attempt to fold into a byline a protest.