Greenpoint Brooklyn, 1999
Czech rebel I remember not so much the rest dear
America what pieces of me will you keep?
It was 99 cents and yeasty and so good cold
and I don't know that anybody paid rent there
but there we were and what love I did not yet think
I knew. Dear America, do you have in small cedar boxes
my pieces of the East River that have kept me rapt
where wrapped I have held summers like that.
Dear America, do you remember that the dope
was dry shake all stems and seeds all cut with
ephedrine in glycerine capsules melting micro
dots under our tongues. What is still dear, America
this place that I come back to, sweating now in
recollection the collected plaster crumbles like snow
field raptures like me like we have never been called
dear, America. Still. Still in with the cheap stuff distilled
from the meltwater in summer, maybe tho but for
but for the condensation, the sweat on the bottle
and sweltering like we do. Dear America, we've had our
differential equations, our earthquake laser targetting
systems like eye beams the railing we have railed
our Laotian season, we tho quiet, a Graham Greene
quiet of us dear, America I have questions. I have a list
of requirements. I have unmet demands and tattoos
on the skin inside my mouth where ink like burnt skin
hangs down and scrapes against my tongue so slainte
we like our arm chair irish famine anarchists drink our own health and wonder
yet at another year dear America, we have got at least one more.