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.