Fourth of July

Photo by Kelley Davis 

From the Poetry Window at East Village Books (99 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue) ... featuring this work by Donald Davis...

Fourth of July 

We are a united people

Confident that every shadow

Will pass over our drinking water

Move on without immolation

Of our beautiful women

Because ours is sacred

The distillation of many songs of

The unquestionable legends 

Of our shipwrecked ancestors 

The same shadows hid

Behind blessed sea walls

Which they had built so that

Conversations could be had

Away from the occultations

Of the various birds lined up

Well into the night waiting

To carry out innate missions.

For us it is just and proper

For the wars to end

Time and again

New ideologies to begin