Having Been There

I once again knew, by the look
in those green eyes, the cheapening
of America was again becoming
expensive;

                   the billboards here
behind screens of trees, flowers
growing wild in the medians where
they were planted by road-crews
too drunk with the sun to move
toward

             freedom or the glitter
of a beer can bent by the force
of its bouncing over the center-
line and into a hillock of fresh trash.
This

         is the America I love,
and I crawl into its belly being care-
ful not to scrape my knees or touch
the poison fluids it exudes.  This
is the America I figure

                                   will choose
itself over all others and hang
itself from a live oak like moss, silhouetted
against a southern sunset, a GMC
pickup marring the scene with its billowing dust
and the shadow of a large ht-brim...

5/7/95