C/O Night

The United States of America
what do I care
about your super malls and
deserted dusty desert highways
the lonely light of a homesick highway
electra glide patrolman

draws a lonely golden creek between the mountains
your war on terror communism and drugs
lost and won and lost again
and stars and bars and drunks and stripes
on your shoulders and around
and your single
mothers working the split shift at Norms

your suffocating suburbs with their rows and rows and rows of homes
your working class in black and white and your heroes in technicolor
apollo, vietnam and saginaw and

dead presidents, money on your mind

your great lakes who took a thousand sailors to her depths
the new jersey turnpike, winter dawning
of walden or Kafka or mice of men or saviors in ryes or

bright lights big city
flakes of ash and soot and snow still falling through your dreams
there is a girl in new york city that paul simon called the human
trampoline
i call her blue
for the the color on her door, Delancey street, the number varies
it only opens with the secret codeword of my heart and there it is

i enter as a thief would enter - quietly
for a second I can see her lonely
lost in thought behind her typewriter
the antique wooden swivel chair creaks black hair, green earrings, blue jeans
black eyes straight in mine she says
across the ocean of our
ruins, pointless conversations, business cards and
karma
banging them pinball machines
of our failures, victories and dreams:

You do, you know. Care, I mean.