“Sweet Land” by Jill Klein (poetry ’16)

Sweet Land

Everything’s coming up oranges.
“Ollie Ollie in come free,”
it’s all the statue can do to whisper.
Meanwhile, cats prowl the edges of wildfires,
eagles abandon their towers—
dropping knee pads and hats on an underclad country.

And the FLOTUS floats above this great country,
in gowns that will never be orange.
The handmaids watch as she enters the tower,
as children and chickens roam free—
cage to cage, scratching like matches that can never light fires.
Voices fall in the Capital, to lisps and backside whispers.

When I say wiretaps, I mean the kind that hears horses whisper—
even assholes have assholes to let out the gas. Imagine a country
where they do not. Which begs the question of who fires
first. Which begs the answer. Armpits or oranges?
Imagine the speed of a sea turtle freed
from a six-pack ring that once held Dos Equis. Up to the seaweed tower!

[… continue reading “Sweet Land” at Scoundrel Time.]