Haven’t you seen them? They were
asparagus green, such envious
wine cellar queens of the foothills —
pills in their purses, one hand on the wheel.
Still, we endured; we penny saved
our azure dreams, our vital dunes,
scratching in the asphalt fields.
Ultrasound pictures, unborn
empire builders of pluripotent America —
you’ve no pity for the weak
for your mother the flight risk,
for your father, persevering chump,
for indeterminate democracies
small disturbances in the atmosphere.
Stay a while, try the silver aerosol,
write ‘Freedom Was Here!’ on the cold
walls of the headland bunker;
hug a sneering hipster on the train,
do something chivalric, stroll down Market
but don’t feed the vagrants at City Hall
cartons of curdled strawberry milk.
We’re not pigeons, after all.
