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as
i step over a puddle
at the end of winter, i think of
the modern american emperor
•
stepping
from his red pickup truck,
the american
emperor flails
a
chainsaw at the air.
surrounded
by gaunt sporting dogs
who
flash camera lights at him, he grins
and
mumbles a joke.
another truck
follows behind him
to
haul away the slashed brush growth
he
leaves littered in his path.
in
the jaundiced heat, across
the
windless salt wastes,
a coyote runs
long-tongued and laughing.
"our
american way of life," he tells
a half-circle of people
in
the sunlit
garden, "will achieve victory
over
the evil-doers."
the
leaves hang silent and green,
listening.
"a wise man," he says, "does
not play golf
during
times of great travail.
consider the simplicity of the poppy,
its
potential for profit."
he climbs
into his golf cart, rolls
away toward the swimming pool. the shadow
of
a red branch falls
aslant
his countenance.
the russet moon rises over the
soldiers
camped
in the eastern desert.
gazing toward the far hills, the border
guard
hums
an old tune, high
and
lost.
"yonder
sits a turtle dove,
sitting
on yonder pine…"
along the high river bluffs the oaks
and maples wrap themselves in shadow
leaning toward evening. it will be advantageous
to
cross the great stream. the last barges
of the day
have passed through,
hauling hills of coal and iron
to
the gaping furnaces of the south.
beyond the dark roiling waters, beyond
the far mountains,
the calls
of wild geese rise pale
in
the gray fading light.
from the window the dust of empire
settles on the wooden table
and
benches, a boy's
sleepy daydream
of baseball, dispatches
from a provincial capital reporting
gunfire in the streets, fires
at
night, calamity
and
defeat.
ink
stone, ink stick, paper,
brush.
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