Gettysburg your Confederacy wore
gray as to convince themselves
That in the median there was
compromise that the extremities of right and wrong
Were and are malleable
So that some states of matter
think it a microcosm of pride to x out the haze
In American-pirate cross-bones of
red, white, and blue for a rebel yell
Well, the grayest of cloud, sir
are white or black
Non-debatable facts, see some men
died in the name of greed
Pawns in the game, not-whipped,
but cajoled in laughter and pride
That this bishop or rook is
better than him or me to die
So 2013 and I see by the side of
the road a fair trailer for sale stand
Of flags and NASCAR
paraphernalia, embroidered with, “Pride not Hate”
Over the same blood-colored plate,
as if in the passage of time history changes
The way a story-retold or untold
or rebought and resold mutates
Stolen diamonds back into coal;
out of Africa packed and shipped
Signed up and shined up and
chained at the hip
So you can sit on Cherokee land
and hang up blankets at a roadside stand
And think that your Confederate
flag with an apology stamped
Next to a Bob Marley t-shirt is
somehow an excuse to market the same lie
To hunters, truckers, and
government issues
As I drive past returning my
daughter from a soccer tournament in your town
Explaining in my head that this
still goes on in the foreground
Knowing the lynchings from here
to Baton Rouge
The KKK and the backwoods
cartoons
Of my father telling me stories
of who was asked to find a home
North of Lake Pontchartrain after
the end
And where Homer’s train was
headed in Plessy v Ferguson
I know, I know that was only 1896
to 2013,
1861 to 1865 civil war for
uncivil lives
Who could still remember that is
still alive?
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