Obliteration Summer

Young Fletcher and Harper, 

the men who stood around 

Home Depot Monday mornings,

the CPB and CBS and CDC,

and Covid vaccines,

Melissa and Mark and Gilbert

the golden retriever,

half of Kyiv and all of Gaza,

Dragon Bravo and Red Canyon—

the Southwest wilderness—

and Donald’s ankles,

the guest book from Molester Island,

the rainbow crosswalk outside Pulse nightclub,

a pulse from the heart of Democracy,

the spine of the world’s “most powerful nation,”

Medicaid,

my sibling’s career at DOD,

the Department of “Defense,”

my uncle’s career at DOJ,

and my neighbor’s career at DEA,

and the careers of fifty-two of my former co-workers

—Slack deactivated, #OpenToWork on LinkedIn—

to save taxpayers four pennies per year,

any possibility of a mortgage-rate reduction 

or cheaper eggs,

Charlie Kirk’s summer vacation,

Colbert and Kimmel,

the First Amendment,

any reference to slavery at the Smithsonian,

the legitimacy of the Supreme Court,

and the freedom of anyone but cis hetero whyte christian men