COUNTRY IN SEARCH OF A SYMBOL

It should be so pointedly, painfully human

it hints of machine, like a naked anorexic.

It should, while evoking eternity, cry time,

like a priest at meat.

Let our public buildings proclaim their separateness.

Let our flag be fearsome.

Let our money mean even more to us.

And do not forget:

a west vast as unconsciousness,

arteries of oil, oceans warm as urine.

Consider icicle skyscrapers,

parthenogenetic subdivisions,

factory farms in which a billion breasts with beaks

inflate to fill their cages,

satellites so fine they’re triggered by sighs …

We vacuumed fat. We erected glitter.

We invented memory and made of it

a Web, a Predator, an Avatar.

We gave our name to a new disease.

We creatured nature with our cries.