Protesting the Gulf War

Since about that time

My childhood was a time of peace,
other than the looming threat of nuclear bombs
War broke out in 1990
“No blood for oil!” we chanted
Painted on signs
Pleaded with passing cars
in a town whose main industry
was military.
We got heckled,
We didn’t care.
This is what democracy looks like,
This is what solidarity looks like.

war had been literally continuous

A decade later,
In liberal Massachusetts
We chanted the same things,
about the same war
in the same part of the world
by a president with the same name

though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war.