To be fair, right now I’m mostly
whistling as I pass
this nation-sized graveyard.

I have been dissatisfied
with every option 
that’s ever been presented to me.

Yes, I could have claimed
the easiest identity
and tightened my grip

on a White illusion of 
safety; could have
raised a banner 

on behalf of the Native
that lay hidden in me and 
fought a valiant, visible

losing war; could have straddled
that weathered fence and swung 
a leg on either side of it until

it broke under me
and I died as stupidly as I would have
if I’d chosen anything else.

I have America to thank for 
these choices, I know: 
a choice of skewers, a plethora

of demises. In the long run
we’re all as dead as flagpoles,
no matter what flags we fly.

Is it worth the fight at all?
I’m comfortable saying no,
for the moment at least. Right now

I’m sitting in smoke and mirror land,
thinking about writing new music
in case songs survive what’s coming.

They’ll need lullabies, dirges,
everything from ditties to pretties
to small hymns to whatever is left

of the nature we’ve grown to know.
The only song I hope
they will not need again is

an anthem.
As I wait and fret
about the end, I pray:

whatever choices I have left to make,
let me never have to raise my voice with others
in such a song as that.

As ever, I am blessed
by this country. As I
damn this moment, I
resurrect one that never
existed. As a wheel,
a cog, I am integral.
As a misshapen wheel,
a crooked cog, I
have been forced to 
work. As
I am crushing, as I crush it, 
as I am crushed I am
able to rationalize
my fault.  As I live,
I can breathe. As I am made
safe, I breathe with lungs
not my own.  As I dangle
over pits and fires, I am
daredeviltry of a prescribed 
movie. As I stunt, I
fall short. As a wound,
I mostly just bleed. As a man,
I am thus drained. As ever, 
I am blessed and healed simply
by dint of all I was born to
and no more than that as long
as I let that be. As it is, I let it be.
As it is I am ashamed unto death
but survive by
whispering, wait
for your moment. As it is,
that is all I have ever done:
wait.

Look at this book —

someone’s
torn pages from it — a math
textbook — no mystery
as to what has been excised —
missing the entire
chapter on quadratic 
equations as indicated by
a peek at the table of contents —
who would do such a thing — thieves
stealing functions — 

And this book —

Organic Chemistry —
missing a chapter called
Introduction to Synthesis — how will
we learn synthesis without a proper
introduction now — who takes such things —
who deprives us of such 
knowledge as this — how
we are built into being
from the basics — 

Can’t find a full book

of history anywhere —
truncated civics lessons only — they’ve torn
proverbs from biographies and changed
dates, places — how we were before now — 

but these books

that display the flowers
typically used in funeral wreaths — these posters
of disarticulated bones, muscles — these ancient
paintings of Heaven opening to judgment of
the corporeal, the material, the easily
touched? All intact — all mounted
in places of great honor — all placed
within easy reach —

as holy books
would be

For those

who have made
their existence in pain
that shifted early from
personal and acute
to social and chronic,
learning
against their will
how long it takes
to go from one gasp
of strained breath
to a lifelong struggle
for dignity, life, air;

for those
who see doors
open for some
and closed to others,
those who cry out
against the custom
of closing doors, those
who kick against 
doors that are already closed,
those who put themselves
in the way of closing doors;

for those
forced to war against war
and those who reluctantly step to war
and those who step back from war
and those who lead others
to step aside from war;

for all those
arrayed against
what hurts and strangles
and blocks and combats.

I see you, am
with you,
not against you;

hear you and say
listening, not
talking over you;

say
yes, right here,
not over there; say
with you,
by your side, 
at your back,
at your service, 
at your call.