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today i took me and my wife
and kid to the apple orchards
to do what most american families
like to do in apple orchards and looked at
what i believed to be these really rare and pretty
white girls then suddenly they started dancing
like they were black these white girls from the
suburbs who had no idea what it is to be black
or to struggle or be down and out or to be
from the ghetto and they were trying to look
all seductive and provocative yet they were
doing the exact same moves with the exact
same body language and the exact same
expressions dancing like this under an apple
tree like some awful horrible parable of adam
and eve superficial and sleazy and all these
families were with their digital cameras and
their delays and it felt like some sort of crazed
cliche like some walt disney version of invasion
of the body snatchers doing the exact same
poses under the exact same apple trees
and if you knocked them out it wouldn’t really
matter anyway cause they were the exact
same people engaged in the exact same
role-plays with the exact same desires
the exact same delusions exact same
personalities exact same dreams
(all i could start thinking is when
i die i beg you please just dump
me off right by the haunted hayride
no pie-in-the-sky lines no sighs no
crying just drop my bones off right
below the cardboard signs the ghosts
and goblins and when the rickety-rackety
tractor funeral ride is over feel free to
pick out your own pumpkin in some
dim sun dreary dusk of october)
upon returning home we drove
through a strip mall where
there was this old man
with a knee brace on
watering his perfectly
sculpted twirly-whirly
manicured shrub with
a radiotower poking
up over his rooftop
and he lived across
from a used-car lot
from alcoholic firemen
and blushing tomboy
at the gas station
then got followed
all the way home
by some from very
hostile (o no!) white
kids from the suburbs
cranking their rap
from the ghetto
and i thought
wow things
have really
changed
not for
the better
in this god-
awful flag-
waving country
they like to
refer to as
america
as com-
pared
to days
of alice’s
restaurant
audrey hepburn
albert finney
jim brown
joe namath
castro and kennedy—
“earn your criminal
justice degree in just...”
my wife folding me up
and conveniently sliding
me right beneath the bed.
