America, the Beautiful
This is America, the dark house of fiction, the dark horse, the battle ground. This is the place where I danced with my mother in the den before she was drunk and chose wine over her daughter. This state, NJ, is where I grew up and lived for thirty years in a home full of love, drunk love Mother, my mother, she’s her own country, her borders closed, highways full of inspectors, streets turning and winding with detours, all under construction. I miss her. I wish she’d give up appearances, the beer, the white wine, the red wine, how it makes her foreign, the other reality, shiny with red drunk cheeks. I remember loving her once in long sober hugs. This is my song for her: my mother, my mother, the beautiful.