day THREE HUNDRED and TWENTY SIX

Great Again

            (remembering July 4, 2017)

This afternoon I drove

the neighborhood:

block parties, families

on bikes, flags waving,

white people reveling

in privilege.

So I know who it is tonight

throwing flames,

canceling peace

with the sounds

of war. But this is not

Syria, not Iraq, not Yemen,

none of the places

where we’ve spent

our treasure for the good

of corporations. Yet

the war surrounds us

even here:

We Brave, with our anthem

of bombs and rockets,

We Free, with our famous

waving flag,

We the Good People

of the world with the lies

we tell ourselves that once

we were, and someday

we will be Great Again,

whatever that means.

-Tamara Madison