From a car, through a world that’s turned to corn, red barns,
huge machinery, and a church that says, “Read the Bible, it will
scare the hell out of you!”
From the banks of the Iowa River, where a snake comes out
of the grass like a belt, testing the air with its buckle-tongue
From the Mark Twain Diner with a Mark Twain Burger
and a Mark Twain cup of tea
From another car, Chicago’s stickleback in the rearview and
the Lake’s blue lung swollen with fishing boats
From space, as in the installation by Aaron Koblin in the Museum
of Modern Art that shows air traffic over the United States as
colored lights, a slow firework spraying in and out during the day,
careful and beautiful
From a tour boat in Chicago, where the not-half-decent docent
tells us that this building has one hundred and ninety-eight
floors, including parking, and was designed by, you guessed it,
Merrill, Owings and Skidmore
From the booth of a bar with a sign that says, “I’m Irish, what’s
your excuse?”
In a nightclub, where you happen upon the Iowa State Drag
Queen championships, arms outstretched with dollar bills. This
you did not expect
America is standing in a room with Pocahontas, Worzel Gummidge,
a bedbug, and at least three Chilean miners. Halloween,
in New York City at least, is no longer about darkness and all about
just having fun. Something about this disturbs you
I love the way in America the planes fly so low you can really see
the fall colors and the cities cut like circuit boards
I love the mechanics and labor of your hand-towel dispensing units.
That lever does for me again and again
I love that even in the cold the sky is blue, the sun is out, the air is
crisp and clear
O, my America, my new found land! Where the poems are as long
as the highways, and there is no such thing as a short story
