I bow for myriad reasons,
Always my own.
Supplication, protest, personal, or otherwise—
To that over which I may
Or may not
Have control.
Genuflecting at the altar—
To worship the wheat-wafer body of Christ,
Among choking incense and magenta stained glass.
The black-clad faithful, they nod in approval—
I, the stolid girl of duty.
Then oh, she rebels.
The trap door awaits me, for the trip to hell.
I kneel at your feet—
My head on your thighs
You stroke my hair,
Following passion my mother will never understand.
I contemplate the world.
My white privilege, my cultural damage
Does not absorb
The sacred, the sacrosanct.
I am not a time bomb, awaiting implosion.
I walk the streets freely, unquestioned.
When we kneel,
It insults the John Deere hat wearing masses—
Chewing tobacco and proclaiming
They will make America great again.
What does that mean?
The collective fear curls into a boil that sings
Oh say can you see
By the dawn’s early light—
Oh America.
Oh flag, oh anthem
This is not my America.
And I bow to my knee
Not from disrespect
But to pay tribute to those betrayed
By my America.
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