Dear America,
Your news is chicken slaughter.
Slash. Plop. Here comes another one.
How do we control what goes
into our bleeding eyes and ears?
Headlines are running around
headless. We are in the kitchen.
A knife flies out of the drawer.
A broken cup from the cupboard.
We were only trying to steep
herbs and now we are called
to be fucking Wonder Woman.
Chink from our bracelet.
Fill a hole with all of it
and pour cement
on top. Build a new house
over the sinking stink pile.
Stay engaged. We can do this. Chicken
squawks. Feathers. Here you come again.
Linda Cooper lives in Washington state and teaches creative writing and composition. She completed her MFA at Eastern Washington University and her poems have been published widely. She has won several poetry prizes, and her chapbook, Blue, a Waltz, was published by Floating Bridge Press in 2023.
Read other Letters to America online or in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, published in partnership with Trinity University Press.
Header photo by ErikaWittlieb, courtesy Pixabay.
