My America

I wrote this during the first Trump administration, 8 years ago.

read or listen:

I wrote this 8 years ago, during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. Still true today.

My America

My America is clever,
she makes and bakes and mends and transforms,
but she’s cool enough
to date people she shouldn’t.

No longer optimistic,
she chose to become a romantic,
holding loves rooster-tail
as she shovels through the medicated mud
of modern love.

My America does not fear the sensuous,
celebrating the queerness of intimacy,
the rightness of gender-fuck,
while nuzzling
the umami of heterosexual entanglement,
from time to time.

She loves a good prayer,
almost as much as a rock anthem,
almost as much as tequila,
as much as real coffee,
but finally,
at long last,
more than cocaine.

She feels blessed to sit at the table,
with your 90 year old Grandmother,
who will never trust her,
but will still feed her goat carnitas,
that make us all want to lay down and die,
so we die in peace.

My America can’t wait for
children to build walls
so she can burn them to the ground,
shaking her ass at you
as dances across the ashes.

Seeing the deep stains
of broken treaties,
deported fragmented families,
piggish blind momentum,
she does not weep,
but takes a deep breath,
rubs her heart,
and once again

she persists.