Fourth of July

 Today, the hate of the world 
 weighs heavy,
 and I must remain 
 a poet,
 close my wide eyes 
 to fireworks,
 keep mostly to myself this
 unacceptable sadness,
 renderings of a split too recent, still
 too red,
 still too Confederate and Union,
 still too
 Democrat and Republican, still too
 bleeding intolerance.
  
 It’s complicated – it’s not that I 
 loathe America.
 I think it’s the heaviness
 of decades,
 iron infused rage leaking into 
 every conversation,
 anthems slicing us 
 to bits,
 mixing us up in a thick, 
 coagulating bag,
 shaken, breathless against plastic,
 poured back
 on the table for piecing together. 
  
 No slogan
 can mend us now, you see,
 no pledge
 heal what crusts beneath a weakly
 bandaged country, 
 no quotes, 
 no t-shirts, no license plates
 can cover 
 the acute infection of still 
 contending flags.
  
 Don’t believe me?
 Look around.
 Examine our scarred nation yourself.
 Hear curses 
 of hatted sign carriers, barn painters,
 slogan criers.
 Watch the way on the street we avoid each
 other’s eyes.
 We have made ourselves
 sick. Untreatable. 
  
 Sure, we can try a skin graph 
 or two.
 Clip and stitch the thin, angry skin that still
 connects us.
 But where is the sterilized needle 
 we need?
 What synthetic thread has power 
 to mend
 after hatred? And besides,
 someone forgot to knot 
 the end,
 their careful sewing quickly
 come undone.
 We have come undone. 
 
 We’ve fallen,
 ripped apart again, ungentle, one 
 frayed faction 
 at a time.
    
 -Katherine Gotthardt