American

May 2, 2011

American

I am the Cosmopolitan Casino,

all blinking lights,

party dresses,

and people laughing

as you spin the roulette;

I am the thrill of risk,

danger,

chance,

and maybe filled

with nothing real

at all. 

I am September twenty-second,

the day you lose the taste

of something you could never keep,

that delicately powdered confection

that you chewed up too quickly,

swallowed too soon,

forgot to savor,

which is followed down

by me:

the bitter,

unwitting draught

of equinox.

I am a New England rain,

the chill knocking you

out of any reverie

so you’re falling down to earth

like a jet plane

or a shooting star,

leaving a hurtling trail

of smoke and space dust,

crash-landing just like

a myoclonic jerk.

I am Crowheart, Wyoming,

a near ghost town,

all cold red desert sunsets

and abandoned forests

of spruce and pine

by a dammed-up Bull Lake,

as you make your way

speeding past my earthen walls,

through and through

this empty landscape.

I am the coffin of F. Scott Fitzgerald,

if only because it’s an ending.