Only Now

 

 

What I keep coming back to is this.
I am not so unlike the bad boyfriends
of my twenties. The guys who,
even on days when talk and touch
were easy rivers between us,
had their eyes elsewhere,
and it wasn’t until later, us over,
that they noticed my particular
light, or warmth, or wit.
What I’m saying is, that’s exactly
how I was with you, America.
Even as I gazed at your
sapphire-in-the-sun water,
or stood dwarfed by pines,
I saw all the people you hurt,
but barely thought
how your pages naming us
equal and free, and your aims
to do better, allowed me
to learn and breathe and be.
Democracy was like weather
on those rare days when it’s so
right, so not-too-anything,
its goes unnoticed.
This is why it’s only now,
with everything you’ve been,
and tried to be, under attack by men
who’ve only ever had too much,
that I see you, really,
and grasp it, in its fullness.
Just how much there is
for me and you and all of us to lose.