American Bittersweet (Celastrus Scandens)

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When we catch sight of you,

America,

Vulgar like a knuckle sandwich,

Your reach stupendous,

Satellites shouldering your spacious skies -

When we catch sight of you,

O beautiful,

Our heart begins to thump.

Home of the Maidenhair!

Virginia Sweetspire!

It's a funny crowd that roots for the ump.

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Approaching you, our brain begins to froth,

Purpled by stray outbursts from your great and cloven mind.

Approaching you, we feel that staticky grey fuzz that you give off,

Like when we squashed our cheek against the old TV, aged nine.

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Approaching you now, we lean in, we speak freely,

Sounding out the contours of your language.

Tonguing your acronyms and ethnicities,

Teething your glamour and your glitch.

Inhaling your junkmail and your litterbugs,

Exhaling your theme parks, your xeroxes, your zits.

That’s showbiz.

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And though we departed feeling

Like an orphan in a schoolyard,

Hemmed in by yelps and elbows,

Awkward among that rough anarchy,

We will be returning

Like an uppercut, knocked hard against the jut of something,

Classic, superior, final,

A rising hook; a knockout blow.

This time, we're remaining, pressing forward like a tourniquet,

The way a desperado might push desperation up against a hate.

Pushed hard against the dying by the praying

The way a congregant presses God against their pain.

Knuckled down by hope, with hope,

The way a firstborn might knuckle idioms up against a weakness,

The way an urbanite might use television to squash away their loneliness.

Waiting for salvation, rags pushed against the injured...

We have been the killers of our own dearly beloveds.

Shall we not be their avengers?

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