June 5, 2020

America is Burning

Stephen Cooper

America is Burning

George Floyd was lynched in the street;
another Black family in mourning.
A knee his noose, his subjugation complete,
America is burning.

The disaffected, outraged and weary, meet;
citizen-soldiers, their protest: a warning.
But in the White House lives deceit,
America is burning.

MAGA is prime red herring-meat,
Black Lives Matter? Stomach-turning.
America is burning.

Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California.