'America', by D.M. Rice
America is at war
with itself while I writhe.
Back against the wall
children locked in cages.
A woman I love pines
in the blast radius, a phoenix.
The tradition sneers a grin
and holds its tongue, a sphinx.
And my empowered word attests
to turn attention to what’s suppressed.
While America is at war
I dream division, trauma, purgation.
Sing the unprincipled hymns
of democracy, that absent parent.
We meet on screens to the inner
riot, rest assured our old conviction.
Color lines upset a system
never made for close inspection.
Another shooting, another murder, another pogrom
weeping in the tear gas echo chamber.
I want to remember you fit
and hale with youth, aspiring insight.
When the sea of violence parts
so the blessed may run, a fugitive.
Undead America wars its very essence
as the burning world looks on and on.
Art by Karolina Grabowska