Dave Bonta's short poem is about how war arrives in our lives as language. It comes as an "old order," something familiar and almost bureaucratic, supposedly settling arguments about "faction and protest." The tone is flat and wary, as if the speaker has seen this routine before.
The middle lines carry the sharpest thought: a war set "against the body" cannot be true. The speaker seems to mean that violence done to real people undermines any justification offered for it. The poem doesn't argue the point at length. It simply states it and moves on.
Then the title comes into focus. A fricassee is a stew of mixed ingredients, and here it stands for the jumble of "notions and information" the speaker takes in daily. Eating it "to ease my mind" is quietly ironic. The speaker consumes the news as comfort, though it may only numb. The mood is uneasy, resigned, and a little darkly humorous, like someone trying to stay calm while the world keeps serving up more.