This is Not a Dream

you 
and a hundred other people 
are jammed in line 
at the stadium 
to buy a hot dog, 
and there’s a white guy with a smirk 
and a cheap pair of khakis, 
and he’s wearing an orange vest, 
and on the vest he’s scribbled—
with a Sharpie, 
in big block letters—
the word: OFFICIAL, 
and his team of barely college graduates 
is taking the food from the hot dog stand and throwing it
in the garbage bin, and then the ice-men,
who you thought were delivering actual ice,
haul away the hot dog vendor and the soda vendor and the guy 
with the big tray of cotton candy
and OFFICIAL-guy
decides he doesn’t like
what you’re wearing
and he jams his big sausage hands into your pocket, pulls out
your wallet, says, you don’t need this or
you don’t deserve this or some other vicious statement, 
and you wonder when democracy died and made him king,
but you don’t say it,
and you look around for the security guards
or the stadium owners
or anybody, really, who looks like they could do
something, but they’ve all gone home, and it’s just you
and OFFICIAL-guy
and his goon squad
and a bunch of confused fans who thought they were at a game, 
but instead
you’re all in the middle of a heist, and you look at each other,
and someone mouths, is this a dream? and you
realize, oh, fuck, this is not a dream
and then you… what?

what do you do?
what do you do?

by Gale Naylor