Morning in America
Kenan Ince
and to the army he said bigger,
and to the Navy he said bigger,
I want more destroyers, I want more!
and to the Muslims he said
you are sand and I will make you
into glass. And the VP said
I can feel it too, and the Cabinet
said we can feel it too,
and something in us was filled.
And something was filled in you.
We held ourselves out,
tingling with safety, huddled
together for warmth.
It was as in the days
of wizards and gods:
the atmosphere shifted around him,
turned womblike and warm.
And the bombs were bigger,
and the destroyers were bigger
and the walls formed themselves
out of gravel on the borders,
and Brownsville was swept away
by a great wind, and the last hares
in Pakistan buried themselves
in the new glass. And he was glad,
and he said more, more!
And Houston went dry
and Alabama fizzled into the hot
winter sun. And the children who drank
from their families' new lakes
in Tallula or Eudora or anywhere
with the names of tragic
heroines lost their sight
and began to stain their clothing
the brown of the old Mississippi,
and mothers returned their children
to the river until they merged
into its stain. And bigger, he said,
make it bigger, and when the riots
blackened the casino-bright skylines
he said somebody take care of them,
and somebody did. And we did.
In our warmth we could fuse
hydrogen, sweep across the nation
like a solar flare, cleansing
all in our way. Our minds
were tidily made beds, houses with fireplaces
licking gently out toward him. The rallies,
the tent revivals, the planes booming
overhead, supersonic
in red, white, and blue:
we no longer had to hear
what we left behind.
And when morning came in America
it was a beautiful morning, so quiet,
not even the calling of birds.
