AMERICA 253

by Scott McConnaha

 

 

I turned eight the summer of 1976

and everything seemed to swell

with bicentennial pride.

Even the cement trucks were painted

red, white, and blue and we waved

our flags at the fire engines

and high school band as they

paraded down a crowded Mission Avenue

buzzing with proud cheers and

Tootsie Rolls thrown at our feet.

It belonged to everyone, that time.

 

Today, there are some storefront windows

painted with America 250 and the light poles

down Main Street have banners with that logo,

but it's different these 50 years later.

Perhaps I've become too gun-shy, too cynical,

too resentful that these patriotic displays

have been hoarded and redefined

and now stand for all the wrong ideas

about what this country is and ought to be.

 

I looked online but haven't yet found anyone

selling America 253 shirts. I think it's a good idea

because most of us want to celebrate a different,

truer version of what this country is

and ought to be. But we know it’s going to take

a few more years to build a ballroom 

that will accommodate all of us.

Scott McConnaha is a veteran, former teacher, editor, and healthcare administrator. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Wis. He is the author of a poetry chapbook titled Without a Prayer, and his work has appeared in Mobius, America, Door is a Jar, New Verse News, Dissident Voice, and Moss Piglet, among other publications.

RED FLAG

by Tricia Knoll

You stepped in the doorway.
Come, you said, to comfort me.

A long way to come without
having gone anywhere new,

I thought, the nurse watched
over me to help me contain

my anger, but I could not.
The background: strangers

arrived to check out a victim.
Such a long way to come

without moving an inch.
My fingers searched

for a red flag to hold up
when I spit out

ban assault rifles,
don’t let white men

use them as banners
for hate.

The hate you wave
at every turn.


Tricia Knoll asks how she might feel if she were in a hospital bed after a shooting and the President arrived.

THE AFTERMATH

by Tricia Knoll






At the very finish,
when all the banners fall
and the sirens silence on to home,
legs knocked out from under
holding dear traditions
in our cheers for those who dare
their best and longest and smartest
of what is mammal in us
and human racing
for the joy of wind
in our hair, and the silver blanket
descends, doubling us at the waist,

someone will count
all the ways we hurt
and all that we have lost.


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who has run three marathons -- each a learning experience of potential and patience. She ran this morning in full sun behind a garbage truck -- and left home the fantasy that she was winning Boston.