America

              True grace takes long enough to arrive, no need to
delay it more with his or her swarm of limbs. While
              I draw sleep out from the bushes, you count your
half-blessings: asparagus growing wild by the fence,
              your spine softening with age. The cattle of the lord

moan let there be grass and poof, there’s an acre of green.
              The eye is our most betrayable organ, the tongue,
a close second—I know a move that can fool both
              in a wink. When the body becomes a drum, you beat it
till the sound’s bitter as water from a bad well. The parts

              of me you thought you could love were the most
boring bits: my titanium hull, my carnal zests. For
              months, your exhalations were turning into black
cloth. They were so soft, so indistinguishable from the dark
              around us, I didn’t even feel them filling my throat.