America: An Autobiography

When America overthrew the democratic government of Iran, my mother
was a question mark curled upside down in my grandmother’s belly.

When America overthrew the democratic government of Guatemala, my father
was listening to a radio broadcast of Willie Mays and the New York Giants.

When America gave Castro a poisoned milkshake, tried to explode his beard
with a cigar, my dad was watching his father, slowly dying on the porch,
empty his pisspot over the railing toward the sandlot home plate.

When America killed the democratic leader of Chile, my father
was a waiter in an Italian restaurant in Coral Gables, bringing water
to a table where a stranger sat with a group of friends. My mother
blew the wrapper off the straw, and my father thought her immature.

When America exploded the democratic leader of Ecuador,
I was learning how to draw palm trees in my front yard;
between the gardenia and the red brick stoop, a duck had laid a nest of eggs.

When America crashed the plane of the leader of Panama,
my mom told me it was beautiful, my drawing.
Whatever I drew, my mother told me it was beautiful.

In the year my mother died, America finally overthrew
the democratic government of America.

When my father dies, I already have plans
to bury him beside my mother,
against both of their wishes,
and then I, America, wild with grief,
am going to overthrow
the democratic government of Greenland
with my army of one, and wait
for the ice to melt.