Planets © 1988 Frida Blumenberg

 
.................................
Out of America
.................................

Out of America the Brooklyn bridge,
Utah godhaunted arches
and the feet of movie stars.

Out of America, cellophane
spotlights, gels, red
ellipsoids.

Out of America, truck highways
and miles of no one,
wheels and sleep.

Out of America the deep chorus singing,
singeing the tabloid
the rotogravure, the dreams.

Out of America the blue sky going pink
jams a flamingo's throat and even guitars
get force-fed daylight.

Out of America a vitamin pill
tumbles on a roulette wheel
and vigor shatters into dust.

The fine high keening of it
solidifies against our bones
and the night gets wet, reflective,
sticky and we wear America
like a borrowed belly, awkward,
fat with the grief of it the justice of it
the practice of it.

America is lard clinging on my hips
my sweetest one against my lips,
hardpan at the feet of the mountains
and the unrelenting, reusable sea.

I am out of America that binds my legs
in the ooze of self
until I rise as one green stalk
out of America, raddled and steaming,
upthrust, weary and bewildered, shouting
here I am.

.................................
Scott Murphy
.................................

 
Copyright © Scott Murphy
April 1997

neon night sky
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