\n<\/p>\n
The vandals came at night
\nTarring the asphalt with the coward\u2019s color.
\nTheir message\u2014candidate and date\u2014
\nReading both ways, at the bend in our road.
The town\u2019s crew tried twice to cover it,
\nBut the words bled through, defiant.
\nWe troubled ourselves and argued for a response:
\nTo stomp on it, to jump over, or go around.
We went around\u2014in every season,
\nFor five years,
\nThe yellow fading, the outrage permanent,
\nThe scar invading each day\u2019s promise.
Sometimes, when it rained, or in slush,
\nIt must have finally disappeared,
\nOnly to return, seen at some other angle,
\nPersistent, mocking, vulgar, cruel.
It\u2019s mostly gone now,
\nDifficult to see on close inspection.
\nWalking around didn\u2019t work,
\nThe insult still in place, indelible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The vandals came at night Tarring the asphalt with the coward\u2019s color. Their message\u2014candidate and date\u2014 Reading both ways, at the bend in our road.The town\u2019s crew tried twice to cover it, But the words bled through, defiant. We troubled ourselves and argued for a response: To stomp on it, to jump over, or go<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1600,242,1377],"class_list":{"0":"post-39371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-fall","9":"tag-north","10":"tag-road"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}