Peeking through the clouds, Mt. Rainier,
with its white tank top, several cities to glare
upon, and a moral blue sky to angle into,
must love by now to be American.
When asked this by the woman in front of us
on the night President Obama was elected,
my mother and I in Walmart—Isn’t it a great night
to be American—the cashier just nodded,
but my mother yelled, Yes, it really is, thank God.
And yes, yes it was, a great night to be American
there between the bags of Lay’s and plague
of batteries, to be Black in America, thank God!
But, oh, mountainous beast, who am I to thank now,
years later, walking home from the bus stop,
surrounded by mid-winter-eaten trees and new-rise condos
that my Love wasn’t shot by cops at work today
mistaken as someone else? Is there a song for this
strain of mercy? At home, the light flickers above us
as we sip wine, letting the TV wash our bodies
into quiet laughter. I know we should spend this time
spitting on the name of America how we usually do
when another Black person has been killed or when
another country perfumes with our war, but there’s beauty
unaccounted for tonight. There are crows out back, tired
from the work of flight and pilgrimage, ashing the branches
one by one. There is the crockpot of red beans in the kitchen,
its chestnut chest bubbling with bay leaves and sausage.
I fear I have made a mess of being an American. Love,
I’m dumb with the fear of never doing enough.
Is there anything else you want to say about what happened today,
I ask him as he takes a spoonful of home into his mouth.
The laugh track on TV peppers the room, and he shakes his head.
What did I expect him—Black like me, American like me,
in love like me—to say after dusting the day along
to get inside this four-walled pasture amid the mourning
of dirty laundry, the painting of a cracked moon guarding
the wooden-black dresser. Do you like the food, he asks.
Yes, I do, I say, and I kiss him on the cheek. Thank you.