Let’s Catch Up

…but I am forgetting my manners —
how are you, how are you,
and how are you? So good
to see you here, to see you
anywhere, in fact. I’d heard
things and although
I know better than to credit them
without corroboration, I was afraid
they might be true in this world
of deportations and vanishings
from off the street. You can’t ever
be sure anymore.  Torture chambers
springing up on back streets,
in the old warehouses we once played in.
Never trust your neighborhood watch
not to get you killed and call it 
due diligence, am I right? Come in,
though, come in! Come in
past the doorbell camera, pay no mind
to the blinking light on the mantle;
I’ll cover as much as I can for you,
should have done it sooner, before you
got here; can’t be too careful,
I suppose, although I suppose
we are too careful in some ways.
The border fence, the guard posts,
the minute wars and accidents
of vigilance.  I knew a lot of people
once. They seem to have disappeared.
Thought I saw one the other day
on the corner. But let’s not dwell
on the bad parts of the living
we are making here.  Focus instead
on the music. The fashions,
the holy trends and not the holy wars.
Focus instead on the trappings
of “the greatest country in the history
of the world.”  We’re on the moon again,
did you hear? And I’m replanting
the old trees we lost in the drought —
the magnolia, the poplar, whatever
will take.  Sit down, I’ll fetch drinks.
Let’s catch up.