the mountains & be them too capturing
their majesties the song has ambitions
feels born to the purple but
like prose—sheds grace & amber—
wants to sound plain so sings in a guise
of hymns amen wants to rise
in every throat blend in be
a paragon of liberty & law
masquerade as a patriot carry a gun
concealed or not early on—stern
impassioned humming
freedom’s beat—treads with pilgrims’
shoes clears the fruited plain of buffalo
of almost everyone indigenous
then chats up white cities gleaming
the song desires incest with that other song
wants to bear its children or father them
waiting for a god’s blessing the song wants
all songs to be gendered wants to act
coy white with foam from one sea to the other
to shine over prairies languishing
the way life can after a cataclysm
when mud leaks into everything enters
our houses drags us out
bares us then covers our nakedness
as it hardens roots us in confusion
roots in us no mud no lotus
along the banks of ponds we lie painfully
beautifully blanketed in mud-coffins listening
with clogged ears to this sometime hymn
of SUPER BOWLs is played claiming to be our home
—like any winner the song wants to own us
