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America, land of the free

reigning blastula

life before first heart

beat of a hammer tapping

to mariachi music boarding

up the border.

America, home of the brave

children prancing into schools

bulletproof bookbags on

backs we built this country on

spilled blood from split skin

bleeding into split cracks in a foundation.

America, land of the free

food stamps and education if only

Anglo-saxon, jesus-lovin’, gun-lovin’, woman-lovin’, degree-from-Yale-reppin’, six-figure-salary-braggin’, can’t-talk-about-my-feelings-’cause-that’s-gay-sayin’, liberal-hatin’, bootlickin’, home-grown-dick-wearin’ man

put on a pedestal to speak

over ovaries overrun

biblically, but I mean legally -- did I say legally? I meant biblically. No, legally?

America, home of the brave

black boy who walks

home after sundown

towns who forgot clean water

and governments who forgot them

and their share of the trickle-down.

America, land of the free

market whos customers are held at gunpoint

for daily bread and wine, but the 1988 cabernet sauvignon bottle

fed babies torn from mothers

gifted to ICE officers, but sometimes teachers

during the first of their three jobs.

Oh, say, can you see,

By the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hail.