Strolling in America

The air slaps the flag like footsteps and I hallucinate that I’m walking away.

Running my hands through my hair
to find parasites there.

Watching my family fall in love with each other at dusk

then the world reintroduces itself
through the hills of Locust Dale.

All the selves posing questions but brother gives us a reach. Paraphrasing: would you rather be blind than go unseen?

“You chose that so why wouldn’t you want people to know?”

Transparency and accountability around choice is on my mind as I shrug.

“I guess in America. Nothing is made to last… me included.” It’s meant to change us, often to break us. Might America make me feel needed, a fully false promise? While Gordonsville reminds me of the German Kolonie housing sections, almost every house seems so thirsty for care.

Mailboxes overflowing

junk and bills,

roofs and windows

that have accumulated the silt and pine cones of

three generations of three part-time jobs.

It’s not like we can’t fix everything,

there just hasn’t been time for a long time,

and likely not money either.

And maybe the knowing has been lost because

there hasn’t been a lot of talking,

even though every day there is more to be said.

Trying

to say the things that mean the most is best done in derivation and directness.

Already no one is speaking the same language.

People have a hard time understanding.

I feel I need to be extra direct. There is no time for confusion.

Pecking around in a swamp puddle like a mangy crane, once majestic like our feelings, we could do anything.

Survival is sucking out a snake bite,

when I lick my wounds, treading like water.

No picnic, no fantasy, but once a decade, we go on parade, which is walking by, not walking away.