let the wound lie open*

we think wounds
need to be stitched
but this wound,
countrywide trauma,
can’t be cleanly
sutured and left to heal
there nothing curative here
only grief-worn hearts

a minute of silence can’t
solve this, even prayers
won’t help, although
we certainly want them
our leaders need to take
a hard look—their hunger
for elected power over
the gritty work

how can they rest
at night? face their
own children? we are
sick and broken
no one wants to own up—
this is not what
our founders intended by
the second

I can’t speak the word
“amendment” it has the
word “mend” in the middle
our country’s slant has
no sense of remedy
or repair, only
self-serving conduct—
I call for CHANGE

use our words!
placards in the streets
marks on ballots
phone calls
letters to the editor
throw them out of office
surely, surely
we must do better than this

*thank you to Emily Gibson of the Barnstorming blog for the title

2022 ©Amrita Skye Blaine
I’m writing a poem a day. These are drafts—they may never turn into anything more or they might flower.