As I was eating a bowl of rice, <br />What she was doing was kissing <br />Another man, <br />Eyes the sensing pistons, lips the <br />Sport of birds of prey: <br />Angels resided in her bone structure, <br />I saw them first nest there in high school, <br />As she made her rounds with <br />Strange little debutants, likely dykes: <br />I loved her even then <br />When she pinned me near the lockers <br />And made me swap spit without <br />Pulling out our retainers: <br />How they drift now, the body taking <br />All of its figs down river <br />To listen to the fireside tales of the negros, <br />The cotton like lightless stars swaying <br />In the field, <br />Mark Twain calling down river, <br />His brother dead and he feeling guilty; <br />But this should be my America, <br />To see her last in a wayward eclipse, <br />Her body settling upon the newer acquaintances <br />Of love and business, <br />And finally marriage, <br />Her lips the sommeliers which swill <br />And then spit, her eyes the causeways <br />From which her judgment blooms; <br />All the waysides go by forgotten, <br />And the boys in their jogging shorts, <br />The smell of freshly cut grass and the grumbling <br />Automobiles, thus in evening her beauty <br />Lights the streets of nostalgia, <br />Swaying like the fingertips of waves the <br />Moonlight covers, <br />And thus she goes, promising with the tide, <br />To afflict the hungry senses of this last of the <br />Modern generations, <br />Now captivating the chastity through <br />Swinging doors, <br />Greeting patrons come in from <br />The flurrying snows, <br />For awhile a causeway, a muse curled <br />Up and busy with Easter decorations; <br />Already forgotten, cozily inebriated: <br />The subject of the colonial poet, <br />Bartering of rumors, canvas that allures, <br />This should be my America.<br /><br />Robert Rorabeck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/this-should-be-my-america/
