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Did you know that 11,000 faces identical with Christ’s are growing thinner in the federal prison? They had no money and no guns, and their pants were not creased. The policeman grows fatter each day and rivals the new tanks. He blots out the doorway of the little café. A couple seeing him spills the milk at the counter, remembering what they did under the bridge last night.
But the policeman is blind. He strikes only when he hears a loud noise. There are others, though, who have eyes like shifty hawks, and they prowl the streets searching for a face whereon an illegal kiss might be forming.

Elizabeth Smart By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. (1945)

This passage from the prose poem by Smart is likely referring to the crime of adultery, but the images resounded with me after the events of the past few weeks in Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, and beyond.


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