National Account
By Joel Craig
How do you recognize a lovely place?
The rotten anthropology of superheroes
hovers above the conference table, exhausted
on the idea of dazzling people. A plugged
organization of the moon like a turnpike
undecorated by barely legal children —
true stories end in the moody doctor city
but I always say the wrong thing. Away
from Las Vegas I spend too much time
at the whale facility. I’m bored with awakening
into historical X-rays
of the NO MOMENT. (What showmanship!)
Who does wear a cape underwater?
Now Egypt is miniaturized and it may never rain
again. Hurling bodies and collapsing lungs
used to be honestly scripted activities —
the stillness in the dream of important history.
From now on your stillness will be happening.
In the actual dream remember how the children
were modified, the sputtering, Russel Crotty language?
Friendly Calliope is no longer remedial
in the crisply American landscape. Even snowy
Vermont grows opaque, a diminished suggestion
in the desert mirror. I feel as if I’m speaking to a dear friend
but I’m saying the wrong things. I don’t like cockfights
or you’d rather be my daughter, deeply, authentically
factualizing our especially Southern roots.
Copyright Credit: Joel Craig, “National Account” from The White House. Copyright © 2012 by Joel Craig, published by The Green Lantern Press. Reprinted by permission of Joel Craig.
Source: The White House (The Green Lantern Press, 2012)