ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING

The United States is a death row amnesiac.
The pace of this suburb a NASCAR flat,

unvulcanized and aflame. My words are daisies
sprung too early, crushed by summer’s lush

hammer. My nose is running. Children
in Zimbabwe are playing marimbas

in suits, dancing in unison. They rip me
by the hair from leaves where I fell. So

much exists beyond Wolf Blitzer’s horizon
line of breaking news: noon festivals of smoke

and drum, fire and food dye all over this
verdant, thick-limbed planet. OM and Moksha,

Great Spirit, third eye ash. The elephant
ears are giant and seared yellow at their

edges. My son’s fox-orange hair matted
upward. My pile of wrinkled shorts, ocean

with my wife—her sleeves of grace,
mouth of tears, torso of silk, turquoise

in our lips, waves thrashing our knotted
hands. There is a boy grooming a horse,

a girl perfecting pirouettes, a dog
with slippers in its mouth.