Poem: Coming Home From an American Riot
I.
The bottle arcs, a green comet, and bursts on brick—
a magnesium bloom that whites out the night.
Glass rains like sleet on a ’62 Chevy hood.
I smell gasoline, burnt rubber, and something older:
the ghost of root beer floats and fast food
still clinging to my tongue.
II.
Ten seconds ago, I was eight, knees on a naugahyde diner stool,
watching Dad flip a nickel so it spun like a silver moon.
The jukebox coughed The Beach Boys,
and the waitress—her name was June—
pinned a paper crown on my head
because I finished my fries.
III.
Now the crown is a riot sign,
the fries are tear gas canisters,
and June’s smile is a silhouette
running past a burning precinct.
The nickel lies somewhere under broken glass,
still spinning, still trying to land.
IV.
I taste metal where the drink should be.
The sky is the same blue it was in ’62,
but the drive-in screen is gone—
replaced by a live stream
where every image screams blind violence.
V.
“Return to your homes.”
I almost laugh— home is a Polaroid
tucked in a wallet I lost
when the first bottle shattered.
A child tugs my sleeve,
and I hand him my scarf—
red, white, and blue,
frayed at the edges,
half gone and still waving.
VI.
I pick up the nickel.
It is warm, as if it remembers
the diner’s neon,
the way the world once fit
inside a single spin.
I close my fist.
The riot keeps moving,
but the coin stays.
A small, stubborn orbit
of what we were
before the sky caught fire.
Analysis: The Shattering of American Innocence
Coming Home From an America Riot explores the violent collision between an idealized American past and the fractured reality of its present. The poem uses riot imagery as a metaphor for the collapse of the “American Dream,” contrasting nostalgic childhood symbols with their distorted adult counterparts.
The paper crown becomes a riot sign, fries become tear gas canisters, and the nickel — symbol of childhood wonder — remains the last surviving fragment of innocence amid chaos.
The poem’s emotional axis is the idea that America’s past, once bright with neon diners, jukeboxes, and simple joys, now exists only in memory, while the present burns—literally and metaphorically.
The riot represents not just societal unrest, but a personal reckoning, where the speaker confronts the question: What remains of home when the country itself is unrecognizable?
