Dear America

A headline flashes on the television screen (twenty

two wounded and one dead  in new york city after

an attempted bombing …), she angrily stretches out

a sheet of lined paper, cries a letter to america onto

the page, scribbling away all the violent syllables

because they are the only words she can control

(she reads the news every morning and today the

total body count was three hundred and nine) –

but she knows it is hard to stay hopeful in a place

where death exists everywhere that life does,

shaking the world until it knows only how to hate.

     dear america,

     you are nothing

     but a living tomb …

The kettle screams (yet he doesn’t flinch because

he hasn’t left his bed in days), he sinks into his

sheets and lily (who spends all her time baking

cookies for nobody to eat) says, “john, honey,

your tea is ready” – but all he can hear are

the distant echoes of school bells and gunshots

and the humming of the yellowed lights overhead.

     dear america,

     why are there bullet holes

     in my daughter’s

     school uniform –

Rain pours onto the pavement around her, she

presses her palms onto the gravestone (her father

died three days ago), and she’s freezing, holding

her ears so the cold doesn’t bite them off (she

sold her coat for more money but it was too late)

– and she cries, sobbing with the sky because her

father is dead and her fingers are blue and her

voice isn’t stronger than the weeping of the wind.

     dear america,

     why in the world

     is insulin

     so expensive –

Sirens flash into the waning of the night and he

shivers, remembering the lessons he had to learn

on his own (keep your lips sealed, keep your eyes

down) and maybe (just maybe) they’ll say “good

morning,” rather than shooting … (they say it’s a

white man’s world) and he’s pretty sure they’re

right because he knows that there are currently

hundreds of black teenaged boys sitting away their

lives in prison cells for crimes they didn’t commit

 – and he sighs, because at least prison is better

than death, and he’s ashamed that he’d rather wear

handcuffs the wrong size than a hospital gown.

     dear america,

     I’ll pledge allegiance

     to your flag and

     to your republic,

     but liberty and justice

     doesn’t exist for all …

She walks quickly (like she always does), her

heart beats to the steady tapping of her heels

against the concrete and she curses under her

breath for not bringing a change of clothes (she

can’t run in pretty shoes) – then the next morning

she goes to work, earns eighty cents to his dollar,

and listens to her male colleagues as they explain

to her why birth control shouldn’t be a right.

     dear america,

     get your hands

     off my body –

They are almost there. she wipes tears from her

children’s pink cheeks (it’s been too long since

they last felt safe) and dreams of a lifetime without

war (a place far away, where her kids can carry

books instead of bullets), her hands are calloused

like bread, creased like tattered flags – and on

nights when silence sinks into everything but the

churning of the gray water below, she kisses the rosy

foreheads of her tired, broken children whispers

in broken english, “we are going to be free …”

     dear america,

     you are my hope

     for my family,

     for my children,

     for my world …