Helmets, Goggles, America
America wears a helmet when it’s learning to ride a tricycle
because so many things can happen, Bam, just like that;
it also wears dog parks and when Sunday comes the TV
wears ball parks.
If you’ve ever been asleep when a dog barks, you know
it’s been hanging out with skateboarders at the mall while
a percent of the population is down the street getting
their fingernails purple with a few stars.
It also wears goggles so its eyes don’t get wet
underwater, insists hair do’s stay on the same page,
and holds PowerPoint meetings with snacks that have
little orange cellophane halos on sticks.
It’s a known, but little advertised, fact that America
pisses behind gas stations because the door is locked,
and if you think it’s a kind of sheetrock don’t, because
that’s milk of magnesia without the blue.
For me, America is most endearing when it’s a child
wearing a pair of underpants on its head and you
can’t see its demise anywhere, even when there is
a prayer meeting about it and everybody cries.
First published in Storm Cellar