For me, the true political poems are those that get beneath the flesh. Sure, there is the occasional hurled-brick polemic that works as a poem by pure force of will. But for the most part, a political poem has to start deep down in our squirming human works and push its agenda outward in order to be worth a damn as verse. One master of this, among the many elements in his repertoire, is Yusef Komunyakaa. Here is a poem of his. Happy Thanksgiving, whether your folks leaned toward the Pilgrims or the Resistance.

Salt

Lisa, Leona, Loretta?
She's sipping a milkshake
In Woolworths, dressed in
Chiffon & fat pearls.
She looks up at me,
Grabs her purse
& pulls at the hem
Of her skirt. I want to say
I'm just here to buy
A box of Epsom salt
For my grandmama's feet.
Lena, Lois? I feel her
Strain to not see me.
Lines are now etched
At the corners of her thin,
Pale mouth. Does she know
I know her grandfather
Rode a whie horse
Through Poplas Quarters
Searching for black women,
How he killed Indians
& stole land with bribes
& fake deeds? I remember
She was seven & I was five
When she ran up to me like a cat
With a gypsy moth in its mouth
& we played doctor & house
Under the low branches of a raintree
Encircled with red rhododendrons.
We could pull back the leaves
& see grandmama ironing
At their wide window. Once
Her mother moved so close
To the yardman we thought they'd kiss.
What the children of housekeepers
& handymen knew was enough
To stop biological clocks,
& it's hard now not to walk over
& mention how her grandmother
Killed her idiot son
& salted him down
In a wooden barrel.

- Yusef Komunyakaa, from Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. You'll find two good essays about him here.