Clean-shaven, donning a safari hat,
I see him each time I’m at Burgess Park
with my young son, a couple blocks away
from our apartment, inside the heart
of a California liberal enclave. 

Square-jawed, wearing camo cargo pants,
he sits on a bench and reads a newspaper,
his index finger pointed like a gun
aimed at photographs of politicians,
firing off imaginary bullets.

Broad-shouldered in a white t-shirt, his eyes
shaded by aviator sunglasses,
he swaggers around and grumbles aloud
in an agitated way, refuting lies 
he swears the media has told us:

“Obama did nothing to stop swine flu.”
He says in a gravelly tone, his mouth
free from a mask during Covid-19. 
“They threw away millions of votes for Trump.”
Another statement to no one in sight.

Insulated as I am, both by choice
and by geography, from the world-view
this man espouses, he is a rare source 
of my exposure to the narratives
I only claim to know as right-wing talk. 

Here, I would bet he is an outlier,
his rant beyond the span of most opinion, 
and I am relieved how his voice fades 
when he walks past us. Yet I understand 
in other neighborhoods he might not be so; 

he could be closer to the norm. Last month, 
hundreds of people impassioned as he is 
stormed the Capitol, either to threaten
lawmakers or defend our country – 
it all depends on who you listen to.