Mercy

Peeking through the clouds, Mt. Rainier,

with its white tank top, several cities to glare

upon, and a moral blue sky to angle into,

must love by now to be American.

When asked this by the woman in front of us

on the night President Obama was elected,

my mother and I in Walmart—Isn’t it a great night

to  be  American—the cashier just nodded,

but my mother yelled, Yes, it really is, thank God.

And yes, yes it was, a great night to be American

there between the bags of  Lay’s and plague

of   batteries, to be Black in America, thank God!

But, oh, mountainous beast, who am I to thank now,

years later, walking home from the bus stop,

surrounded by mid-winter-eaten trees and new-rise condos

that my Love wasn’t shot by cops at work today

mistaken as someone else? Is there a song for this

strain of mercy? At home, the light flickers above us

as we sip wine, letting the TV wash our bodies

into quiet laughter. I know we should spend this time

spitting on the name of America how we usually do

when another Black person has been killed or when

another country perfumes with our war, but there’s beauty

unaccounted for tonight. There are crows out back, tired

from the work of flight and pilgrimage, ashing the branches

one by one. There is the crock-pot of red beans in the kitchen,

its chestnut chest bubbling with bay leaves and sausage.

I fear I have made a mess of  being an American. Love,

I’m dumb with the fear of never doing enough.

Is there anything else you want to say about what happened today,

I ask him as he takes a spoonful of  home into his mouth.

The laugh track on TV peppers the room and he shakes his head.

What did I expect him—Black like me, American like me,

in love like me—to say after dusting the day along

to get inside this four-walled pasture amid the mourning

of  dirty laundry, the painting of a cracked moon guarding

the wooden-black dresser. Do you like the food, he asks.

Yes, I do, I say, and I kiss him on the cheek. Thank you.