Good Time
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The Poem
Good Time
They came for the good time.They always come for the good time first —the dancing, the colors, the sprinkles,the pink baroque framethrough which joy was flowing in both directionsbefore they decided that joy flowing in both directionswas a threat to something they valued more.
Power.The kind that requires other peopleto have less of everything that makes life worth having.
The Department of Homeland Security,in association with Space Force,has issued the following notice:
The good time has been seized.It was known to make people excessively themselves —excessively free —and freedom, as determined,is a controlled substancewhen it arrives in a pink spacesuitstanding in sprinkles on a Tuesdaywithout asking permission.
The sprinkles have been confiscated.Have a productive day.
Standing in the sprinkles anyway
The astronaut is standing in the sprinkles anyway.He received the notice.He decided it was not addressed to him personallyand returned to standing in the sprinkles.
This is called resistance.This is called Tuesday.This is called the good time that cannot actually be seizedbecause it lives in the bodyand the body belongs to the person inside itand not to the Department of anything.
The woman with the megaphone is making an announcement.I cannot hear exactly what —but I know the register.The register of someone told to be quietwho has decided quiet is not in her repertoire,who has the megaphone because someone had toand she was there in the pink dress in the pink bootsannouncing:
The seizure has failed.The good time could not be contained.It is in the sprinkles. It is in the roses.It is in the statue who has been reclining on that velvet sofasince before this administrationand will be reclining after.
The beetle is magnificent.Iridescent. Enormous.Decorated in the colors of somethingthat evolved over millions of yearsinto exactly what it needed to bewithout consulting anyoneabout whether the colors were appropriate for the current political moment.
The beetle did not receive the notice.The beetle is just being the beetle —which is, it turns out, the most subversive thing in the piece.
Outside their jurisdiction
The real crime is the theft.Stolen from ordinary peoplestanding in the sprinkles on a Tuesday afternoon —stolen for greed, stolen for power,by people who decided your happiness was a resourceand your freedom a surplusand your pink baroque frame full of clouds and candya threat to something worth protecting —which was themselves. Which was always just themselves.
The sprinkles are still there.The astronaut is still in them.The woman still has the megaphone.The beetle is still magnificent and entirely outside their jurisdiction.
Joy is still flowing through the pink baroque frame regardless —because joy was never a controlled substance,because the good time belongs to the people in itand the people in it have decidedthat belonging cannot be confiscated —not with a notice, not with Space Force, not today,not while the astronaut is standing in the sprinkles,not while the woman has the megaphone,not while the beetle is being magnificently itself.
Have a good time.
They cannot stop you.
They never could.