I love America so much I was born blue,
wanted to resemble the flag on my way out
We Refugees (E pluribus unum)
America
The place where every one comes from someplace else
Because of People Like Señora Torres
Who volunteer early
Saturday mornings to
pick up sidewalk litter
Questions for My Ancestors
The flash before a thunderous clap
Lightning blazes through our night’s sky
At a BP Station Outside the Town Where I Was Born
We are traveling deeper into
how it really is: Approaching the counter
Two Poems
Woman in the old van
next to where I park
breastfeeds in the driver’s seat.
Escape
If a leap could be laughter,
this deer bounding
over a fallen log
Gentle George
Bouncing over the city skyline, he shambled
Into Cup Foods with a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill
Protection Rejection
I gave him back his Remington,
the one he insisted I keep
under my bed.
Am I the Stranger?
Our farm market opened on Saturday
I walked bareheaded among the vendors
My Fellow American
Now that I’ve been around you more,
I like you better than I did.
Patriot
I became a patriot
when I was eight
during World War II.
The 14th Amendment
I insist on it.
Insist on it, I shout
at the well-groomed TV news anchor
The Wheel of Fortune
In the better country of my dreams
that’s neither dim nor dangerous,
Lament
An ambivalent American am I,
unwilling to succumb to the kind of
country we have become. Numb
The Great Depression
A proud American
is what I was.
Expectations for An American
We prepare a meal for hungry
guests, in gratitude for
the harvest received.
Twenty-Four Years Later
It was a sun-filled morning
I remember my shock
storm front
in childhood’s endless summer
beneath a sunset sky
we catch the lightning bugs