All We Are Saying

Tad Clemment

“And we are willing to try to give peace a chance.”

— Dominique de Villepin, Foreign Minister of France

Somewhere in South Carolina
they’ve renamed fried potatos
“freedom fries”
in protest against the French,
who it seems have the Gaul
not to follow our piper
merrily off to war.
Next time I order a hotdog
I wonder if I’ll have to ask
for “sour liberty”
because the Germans
remain unenthusiastic as well.
I want to live in an America
where it’s still okay to think
for yourself, to question,
to have an opinion,
not an America that makes you
choke down “freedom fries”
with your burned flesh.