Amy Gordon
Dear America
I want to stand hand on heart
in front of a star-spangled banner,
but each time a hint of elementary
school halleluiah rises to my lips,
I remember I trusted you once.
I was a child who believed the men
in white hats didn’t have to be white.
I believed the men in black hats
would go to jail. When we sang those songs
in music class, the Navy hymns, the battle
hymns, the spirituals where men’s hearts
are broken, I thought all that—war,
and the breaking of men’s hearts,
was in the past.
Amy Gordon is the author of numerous books for young readers, including When JFK Was My Father (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) and Painting the Rainbow (Holiday House, 2014), both works of historical fiction haunted by helpful ghosts. Her poems have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Aurorean, Plum, Blue Nib, and in the anthology Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, 2018).
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