“STRIKE until the parents and children are reunited.” – Diane Seuss via Twitter, June 20, 2018 Strike until the world is resolved. Strike until the children are returned. Strike with the intent to abolish. Strike until our tongues grow strange. Until each voice clarions Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Hear me: I do not mean to say rally. A walk out, a die-in, is not enough. I mean strike like a mamba. Like a pandemic. Like a clock gonging the next hour that the lost lives won’t get back. Strike the word again, unless preceded by never—as if we could ever unspool the long white entrails of cruelty, could strike it from our books. No. Cruelty’s record remains, no matter what’s written, its imprint stark as the streak on a struck child’s cheek. What must we bargain with, you coal-hearted men? Tell me. What deal must we strike?