-1-

The squirrels were dancing in the trees
On a cataract of leaves
Occluding the moon,
And fields of tobacco slept
Like unlit dreams.

Little sleepless children laughed and played
And their mirth drifted like balloons
And the squirrels laughed and played along.

Sweet fences of jasmine and cotton
Walled in the haunted black ghosts—
Shadows piled on shadows like snow—
And at last even the child poets
 fell asleep.

The night was long.
No one knows how long.
Some say that it is still night.

But I see the sun’s amulet
Burning on your wrist,
And your scorched watch says
That it is high noon.

I was there when dawn gave birth.
Don’t you know
America was born mullato,
Out of wedlock?
What do you know of her lineage?

I’ll tell you. I’ve listened to the tenements,
To the slumlords, to the sated rats,
And watched the Eagles
Leave their noble scribblings
On the sky:

You see, the American moon pulls,
She pulls, she pulls;
At noon the high tide
Buries dark sands
With its salty lash,
But the waters, the woods, the flags
Promise so much to those who
Believe in promises:
Do you believe in promises? 

On the shores well-kept homes
Stand like statues
Without eyes
Or genitals.
Inside, a pharmacy of riches:
Cotton comforters,
Cotton conversation
That bores the children,
Who go outside to play
In their treehouses
And feed the squirrels
A sharecropper’s harvest of acorns.

-2-

When the sun rose
The squirrels were dying,
The clouds were collapsing
Like balloons shot in the heart.
The children scattered into adulthood,
And you stood there, smiling,
Like an overseer proud
Of his prison’s efficiency—
Private refuge of the dark engine
That would drive the nation
To prosperity, power, war!

Today the fields are ablaze.
You stand upwind, watching
Dreams burn like cancer.
Can you smell the lead
Overwhelming jasmine?
Can you see how the terror spreads,
How the field hands
Flee their poverty for destitution?

The trees are toppling over!
The corpses crushed underfoot!
The living don’t know what to do:
Cheer the mayhem,
Or rebuild?
Can we rebuild
Under the scorching high-noon-sun?

O, the leaves of grass are needles,
They inject my feet with opioids.
Where are my shoes?
Where have you put my shoes?
Barefoot, I run for my life.
You watch me go numb
With each heart-rending stab of pain.

The logs are silent now.
The Eagles have run out of paper.
You have told the children
To rewrite history:
One-plus-one is three.
All around me your disciples
Hack away at the stubborn stumps
Like Antebellum doctors
Amputating unforgivable sins.

But you forgot the acorns;
America’s fertility
Is beyond your purview.
Soon the dreams of a new generation
Will fill the sky like a million mirrors
Reflecting the mid-day sun
Into your eyes,
And your blind hate
Will be snuffed out
Like incarcerated candles
Forever denied parole.

Written on Thursday, May 24, 2018