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.
