In my country, number one
for billionaires, prisoners, franchises
offer menu consistency. What lies
dormant today in the collective
unconscious? Akin to tintype, sun prints
itself on structures and skin.
As we age our vocabularies
expand with names of maladies,
despots, lands next for neglect.
Never so many in history displaced
and in transit, our weather’s breaking
records again. In maps, see crimson,
scarlet, ruby, ochre, folly, wine,
rust augur sea level rise
and agricultural loss. Whom,
in interminable funeral, transcend
time’s passing imagining nude?
How hope some ideal elsewhere,
mirroring correspondence, spooky
action at a distance, perfects
all motion? In my country,
stick’s best trick: stay stuck
years marking spot sprung culprit
returns to at long last as salmon
and tangerine sunset tints the earth.