Sonnet for an America / That Can Strangle Us Because

there are no contingencies when it’s twilight & it’s you
& every contingency has its flag-wavers and every night is
the night before the flames and the screaming and the mad-
men who always want more. Last night, I took precautions
but it was you and I trusted and never suspected & I let you
touch me everywhere you wanted until your night executed
its old stranglehold, no star or stripe in sight. What Bill of Rights
have the dark-suits ever given black bodies? Were it otherwise,
you would have lifted your knee off of our necks. But the flag-
wavers have traded sunlight to the Klan, to the blue wall in your
True North, and we and they will set ourselves on fire because
of it. And yet, I’m sure they’ll give us another poultice of don’t
worry about the ways you’ll be killed. Because it’s you. This is us.




rip George Floyd

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Lynne Thompson is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. The author of three collections of poetry, most recently Fretwork (2019), she has poems in numerous journals including the Massachusetts Review and Ploughshares as well as Best American Poetry 2020. Thompson is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College and sits on the Boards of the Los Angeles Review of Books and Cave Canem.