Cleaning House... a poem for our times

They’re moving all the furniture–
rearranging for the sake of change.
 
We didn’t think they’d go so far:
toilets in the living room, toys 
chained in the yard, windows shuttered,
doors locked after throwing
the refrigerator on the lawn.
 
They cancelled garbage pickup,
and there’s talk of disconnecting
the phone and turning off the internet.
TV doesn’t matter any more,
and the papers pile up in the driveway.
 
The neighbor had a fire  that killed six people
last weekend, but no alarms sounded,
not even from the men with pepper spray
patrolling the sidewalks. No one was home anyway:
everyone was at the protest or locked up.
 
I saw my old girlfriend in handcuffs.
The streets were littered with pink hats.