July 4th, 2012
by Benjamin Schmitt

1. I am beginning to believe
2. our political affiliations
3. are the results of high school antagonisms. I wrote
4. the great American novel,
5. its characters were the mosquitoes
6. carrying the virus that will tear this country apart.
7. The dead have returned as vagrants
8. and even they are disrespected,
9. the ghosts of a Hasidic Jew
10. and a Hell’s Angel
11. vainly struggle to catch
12. the spare change they are begging for. As we watched
13. the fireworks vaulting over the Mississippi
14. curving over the high jump bar of expectation
15. I watched a golem arise from the riverbank.
16. This earthen monstrosity was made of mud and smallpox,
17. he smelled of the river and Civil War blood. The creature
18. wept every bullet
19. that had killed a soldier in our wars.
20. His whimpering was the trumpet
21. on the New Orleans breeze. The sound
22. caused some of the buildings to fall apart
23. but the good folks of Bourbon Street
24. put everything back together with beads and liquor.
25. There is a reality show about this
26. airing on the channel that carries hope to mourning.
27. When I fell asleep that night
28. a limousine took me across the country
29. and I swam in the waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic.
30. One of these oceans gave me a rash,
31. the other gave me a vocabulary.
32. The art movement has become a fashion movement
33. but no one is wearing any underwear.