By Lulu McDonald
a follow-up to Allen Ginsberg’s ‘America’
America is this an identity crisis?
Are you self-destructing?
You need rehabilitation
We want heroin and Jesus
America when will you pull yourself together?
I am far away from you
and I miss your fast food comforts
your cul-de-sacs and stupid traditions
America why don’t you want to get better?
What else can we give you?
Our tired, poor
America do you even want to be free anymore?
When I touch down at JFK you will
greet me with noise and dirty sidewalks
and I will love it
America I will breathe you in
weed smoke and car exhaust
How do you create beautiful ugly things?
How do I listen to our national treasure Paul
Simon while a pigeon takes a shit on a taxi
How do I stare at the city skyline during sunset while
men in the White House sign off on your demise
America I love you
I love your winding roads and picket fences and fried
food I love your exhaustion and self-hatred and paranoia
I love you even though you make it
so unbearably difficult
I am you, no matter how much you try to deny it
America please I am not talking only to myself America
I am still putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.