Wait a minute. We’re not finished with you.
We were discussing the Indefatigable Ones
at a time of Maximum Perforation and Wonders,
the bodies of crows plummeting earthward,
stiffly, thudding onto your porch and you,
you were wearing your Silence Helmet as if it
were a crown, as if it were a kind of prayer.
You can’t pay attention to this world on your knees.
And desire isn’t a tin can taken into the woods
and shot at; it’s a tin can shot to hell
and swallowed, piece by piece, while a crow
laughs, bouncing through the limbs.
You were checked for explosive residue.
You spread your legs. You emptied your days
into a white plastic bucket. You removed your belt.
You removed your shoes. You removed your heart,
a fistful of shrapnel. You were asked to step aside,
you were asked to step outside, onto the tarmac,
onto a plane—you were being deported,
although no ships were within sight.
And the others that were with you began
to hold hands, began to stammer a song, whoso
list to hunt, in the bee-loud glade,
drowned out by turbines, shifting metal flaps,
along a grid of lights the plane taxied,
it made a right and kept moving, it made a right
and kept moving, it made another right
and kept moving—you never left the ground.
You were growing old. You started families.
You had many children. You call yourselves a nation.
This is your flag. It will fit in your pocket.
Thank you for the coffee. Can we go now?