Americana

We pulled the night back—
eyes rolled over white, parched
from darkness. This sudden, shredded
flesh, like a flash of green light.

We witnessed almost every possible
thing that wasn’t meant to be seen:
anarchy symbols spray painted
on the broken corpses of angels,
sleep-drunk cows taking dream steps,
the pulsing alarm clock of insect wings.

What did you mean when you spoke in
tongues to the stagnant water?

Or when you held a broken mirror to a living
static ghost of dumpster fire gnats?

Your flawless conviction that sewer water
and piss puddles are the safest things to drink.

The flag in the morgue suddenly losing stripes
at a steel-factory rate.

The white strobe of bones sticking out of every corner
of your endless, goddamn newsfeed.

Grab a beer.

Crush synthetic crystals into
powder.

They sell this shit at 7-Eleven!

America, we have rusted the goddamn moon.
We shaved the glaciers for our banana daiquiris.
Our children are turned to mulch in their classrooms.
They stick to the walls in pieces.

We do nothing.

Have we disturbed this fitted sheet of darkness,
just enough to peak underneath?

All it takes is a flash mob to make us forget why
we even walked into the room, a true crime
documentary about a family of killer folk singers
who lost their jobs to animatronic rats.

NASA will nuke Mars tomorrow, and then what?

Hand to God,
they sell decommissioned missile silos
cheaper than one-bedroom apartments in L.A.

And while the banjo plays the theme
from Knight Rider, we regress.

We reap our mad-science corn,
binge watch tidal waves,

play sermon
after sermon
and regress,
regress.