Inauguration Day

My patchwork heritage
Of Puritan blood on thieved land
New York millers
German soldiers
Migrant Irish workers
Polish woman driven from her heritage by hate
Painters and poets and patriots
Ministers and madmen
Scientists and subversives
Buried in Arlington
Stones and bones and old silver
Alcohol and backroom deals
Hardworking union workers
Ivory-tower elitists
Sewn-together pieces of history
Quilted by this land
Extending from then into now and beyond
And with the child resting beneath my heart
Conceived the fourth of November
We've all come to look for America.