Sonnet for the Republic, 2018

This was the first Fourth of July I can ever remember people joking about civil war

because it felt better to tweet in jest about #SecondCivilWar than to let that sink in.

I know I’m getting older when I repeatedly remark on the watermelon’s ripeness,

that reddening pink that’s so sweet, at the family pool party, where I enjoy the company

and don’t talk about politics—& don’t even want to, there’s too fucking much to say,

I’ve decided to just be kind to the humans I encounter IRL. Floated in the pool

until clouds and thunder, then an off and on of noncommittal rain. Corn in the husk.

Grilled kielbasa. Salads. It’s legal to buy fireworks in my state now. I hate it.

Whether in war or joy, the rocket’s red blare, released by every other Joe or Tyrone,

becomes a fusillade. People on Twitter were writing parody Civil War-letters,

and that trend as a whole was funny in a way that funny trends are usually not,

at least to me. They made me belly-laugh without laughing, that solar-plexus

warming like a hotplate. The home of life-force, all the mystic traditions say,

and though it already feels embattled, it rallies, because what else can it do?