| Jul. 5th, 2009 @ 05:44 pm 549: The Ides of Amer-I-Can |
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“The Ides of Amer-I-Can”
Kevin McFadden
O tempora! O mores! —Cicero
I write in times of plus and minus, in
decades of division. I write in times
when what's said aloud is sometimes
not allowed said. The brain's in halves,
the heart's in half-knots. In times when
pronouns take the place of nouns and
proverbs take the place of thought. Times
of humanity's peak-ruts: assaults on clear
new summits (and summits on nuclear assault).
When the Air Force aims high and diplomacy
dips low. I write in times when ink seems
obsolete, pens dead. I write on a computer
whose newspaper-named fonts beg
outrageous multiplication. I write in Times.
Her T-shirt exclaims NF! and this is America
all right, that said it, NF is enough, and
yeah, it's clever, but lacks a clear referent:
of what? She's dressed kinda feminist
so maybe that's her beef: NF
of this crap, NF of the way you
bastards look at me—basta bastardi!
for those of you who ogle in Italian—
NF sentences and sentiments like
"She's dressed kinda feminist," NF
ineffables, let's try saying something useful.
The N is on her right breast, the F the left.
I visibly introduce myself to N.
She verbally introduces me to "F— you."
My grandpa used to say as we'd drive
the backroads, "Never forget, son, American
ends in I-can," giving me a license
before I needed it. I'd perch on his lap
to steer, he'd shift and work the pedals; hey,
it really looked like the world was racing
for me. Never swerved toward, "But, Grandpa,
so does Mex-ican—and where did that get them?"
Where would that put me? Agree with grandpa
and drive—dissent, boy, gets you nowhere.
Took years to see the bugs in the grill, the Sunday
roadkill half-dressed in a ditch, before grasping
the unspoken right-of-way. Amer-I-can,
really. One possum better off dead.
We've clocked the sneeze doing 90.
In seconds, it can work a room. My wife
seizes up and lets hers go in two iambic bursts.
(It's cute, it's cute.) Our sneezes, we know,
are ours for life, however accomplished:
my solid hoot, her teensy twos, the three or
more (I'm guessing) you're doomed to repeat—
just reflex. By history, then, do we mean
we want nothing to sneeze at? Jamestown
to James Brown in a few hundred blinks, Plato
to NATO in the space to sneeze. Is it me,
dear wife, or is the world looking less
like a "Man's Man's Man's World?"
Itsyou, she doubles up, itsyou.
Today even blood can kill, I can tell
through a bag marked BIOHAZARD. Doc says
my back is bad, recommends more foam
in the sole ("With these shoes you hardly
feel the earth"). Nothing's touching, I notice
around the sterilized office: tray here, pads there,
swabs over some. Gloves between me
and my healer, paper between me
and the seat, latex between lovers, what's it
coming to? Expanse's expense is a distance
you can learn from any pre-packaged fork
in the hospital café, eating in our cultural
fashion, with middlemen, no fingers. Clean
utensils for hands who knows what's on. |
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