American,
say it with a swagger
& with confidence;
like we own the name
somehow more than the
Canadians & Mexicans,
& all those other Americans
south of Panama

but say it with force
& the assurance
that all those other Americas
don’t really matter,
because they are not really
as American as we are;
they lack that insular arrogance,
fed past gluttony to a place
beyond fatness & complacency–

if the west were open to be won today
we couldn’t do it
because it would take too much effort
& we would have to move away
from the computers
& television screens
& actually do something
besides politicking,
like shoot dinner, or feed it,
or plant it
or even teach
our children to read
ourselves
& not blame a teacher
when it doesn’t happen
fast enough.

How nice
to have strong bodies
whose minds

are wasting away.

****this poem is not anti-American–it is anti-the-America I am seeing in politics, on the news, and in the social media.