by The Plaid Adder
Thinking of you, America,
I backed over the pumpkins that my lover and I
Had carved the week before
And moved closer to the driveway
So that the neighbors could see them.
The broken flesh shocked me,
Too soft, exposed, matted
with stiffening yellow hair.
I tossed the rinds out,
Thinking of you, America,
And got into the car,
Because I must teach the children of the rich,
Because my lover must defend another union
From another trumped-up lawsuit;
And because you are his now,
And because it is raining
And the pumpkins are rotting at the bottom
Of the garbage can we bought at K-Mart,
And because Walt Whitman is dead,
And because Allen Ginsberg was always mad anyhow,
And because I need a last refuge too,
I am writing this
I cannot abandon you;
You are my father
The decent man
Who does not get it;
You are my mother
Who held hands with Jesse Jackson in 1960
And voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980
You are my brother
Captive at the altar of Mammon
Who will never understand
That he is the sacrifice
You are my sister
Finally learning
To think for herself
At the age of thirty-one
And I would say you have betrayed me for the last time
But it will happen again
No, we will not abandon you,
For though we see you putting on
Your nylon stockings and your 3-inch heels
Though we see the mascara on your lashes
And the lacquer on your nails
Though we spot the cover of Cosmo
Peeking out of your imitation Burberry bag,
We know,
We just know,
That you have potential
No, you are not the first woman
To go willingly to the bed of a rich man
Who in no way deserves you
Thinking, I do not love him,
But I need his protection
No, nor will you be the first woman
Years from now, to sit
On the toilet in a McDonald's restroom
With your head in your hands
Thinking, I do not want this marriage,
My children have the wrong father,
And that Happy Meal is not sitting right
And to cast your despairing eyes
Up to the stall door
And a piece of lavender paper
Printed with a phone number
And the words we recruit
And when it is bad enough,
And you are tired
Of denying the almost-half of you
That is not satisfied,
You will come to us,
And for a while,
There will be great rejoicing.
And you will betray us again,
As soon as things get better,
As soon as he comes back to you
With a diamond ring
And the keys to a new house,
And tells you that he has changed,
He has learned, he understands your needs,
Besides, he has had a promotion and a raise
And the house is in a good neighborhood
With an excellent school system.
But we will get up again,
As we do now,
And I will teach the daughters of the rich
To call their bodies their own;
And my lover will force one more employer
To pay his workers' pensions,
And no matter what you do to us, America,
She will be beautiful and good,
And I will love her,
And in two years, on the first Tuesday in November,
We will go back to the elementary school gym,
And pick up that tiny dagger
And plunge it
Straight through the heart
Of the chad.
The End.
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