Americanized (second draft)

Under my Americanized skin
I’ve got a dog soldier and a fat Neopolitan cop
keeping track of infractions.

Under my Americanized eyelids
the marble graves of my hope
are rolling like blues tombstones.

Under the meat of my lower lip
an Americanized raspberry of justice delayed
burbles at odd hours like a soul revue bass line.

That’s my Americanized heart
banging like kitchen help when the party’s over.
I’ll gather the leftover wine and we’ll pioneer something, or kill it.

And those are my Americanized nostrils, flaring
at the scent of the dying cotton mill and the rising pretense
of coffee served in Italian vessels of pure paper.

This Americanized face of mine, beard-bruised and faux-tender,
hangs open-mouthed before the choices of ease and waste.
Don’t be dismayed at all the gold in my pores —

the Americanized man in me says: it’s fine.
I never want to wipe
this skin of mine naked again,

don’t want to see the gold start to disappear,
don’t want to see Cortez under the shine,
dont’ want to see how Americanized his rotten old smile’s become.

Do you know me? There’s a wee battle
in me. I recognize you, your own war,
the memorials we share.

I’ve no clue
about the methods of our dog soldiers and cops
until I see them in action, and I try never

to see them in action. Americanized as they are,
they own their invisibility, pass it between them
even as they hate each other’s histories.

They play their games,
knock each other off and punch back in
next morning to redeem and continue.

Instead of that, just give me the usual something, and give me death too,
an Americanized death of course, bristling with confident stickers
and steel tubs of beer across the rehab hall from the President.

The fat cop and the dog soldier will lift their heads up out of me.
Death always gives our contradictions something to do,
gives them a pose to assume — as if to say:

here is the family portrait;
here are the brothers in arms
who campaign under the skin.