For Veterans & The Patriotic

Ghost Of America

0321.2025

I’m a red, white, and blue pulse.

I bleed in silence for my home,

carry the weight it won’t shed,

and you turn away as if

my hands were never dirtied in ash.

But I have lived its grief,

and eaten the sin of its striving.

Don’t define me

as war-stitched denim,

a rusting wound,

or the shadow and the dark—

No, I am the doubt and the belief,

the fade and the flowering,

the exile and the homeland,

the cradle and the tomb.

m.c.f.