by Kenneth E. Harrison, Jr.
Watchin' their heads in the toilet bowl
Don't see supremacist hate
Right wing dicks in their boiler suits
Picking out who to annihilate
—David Bowie, “Under the God,” Tin Machine (1989)
Forgive us our Confederate bedsheets & the flag above the headboard.
Forgive us the need to be right.
Forgive us the Civil War was never really about slavery.
Forgive us Emmett Till we love our heritage.
Forgive us a matter of pride carrying torches through your campus.
Forgive us blood & soil.
Forgive us fashionable alt-right haircuts & Duck Dynasty beards.
Forgive us whatever will get us laid.
Forgive us fuck the immigrants & Muslims what’s wrong with America.
Forgive us Alex Jones says.
Forgive us it’s Black Lives Matter who’s racist.
Forgive us T***p’s sending a message.
Forgive us whatever pisses off the liberal snowflakes.
Forgive us George Lincoln Rockwell didn’t buy evolution either.
Forgive us Michael Brown & Trayvon Martin were thugs.
Forgive us it’s in our economic interest.
Forgive us our First Amendment rights.
Forgive us & leave the statue.
Forgive us our white fathers never did anything wrong.
Kenneth E. Harrison, Jr.'s poems have appeared most recently in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cutbank, Numero Cinq, and Verse Daily.