Morning House, Morning Glory.

The house looks foreign in the morning.

Like a Nazi warrior grimacing over broken bones

and pots and pans, over cousins who steal

jobs from foreign workers and promises we

can’t see.

Over darkness that wans; over moonbeams

that give a glimmer a glow of something we

can’t keep to ourselves, to keep us back, 

keep

us moving forward in a time we have been convinced

isn’t real, isn’t sacred, isn’t 

England, isn’t community.

O ode to Walt Whitman, who was unreliable in

his standing; who didn’t like writing anything worth

reading, who stared at Abe Lincoln’s statue and

groaned his lover’s name, a woman who became

a teacher.

The house looks foreign in the morning, sometimes,

after a comma is hashed out, after darkness wans,

after the moon smiles at you and you can’t see

in front of you, you can’t see anything behind you.

This is what I said it is what it is.

This is what I said it isn’t.