It was Tojo.
It was McKinley.
It was Mauser & Gatling
& Arisaka & three hundred years
of brands & chalices. It was rain
& the collarbones of women
bloomed by heat & miscegenation.
It was shoes.
It was corrugated iron.
It was homegrown & inequitable.
It was nephews, friends of friends, the good
life that wanted to keep on keeping.
It was smokeless.
It was capital.
It was the logic of the emerging
global market.
It was ramping up.
Bleeding. The prepared for guest
called away across the water.
It was called across the water
but still it was not American.
It followed this form: a. wandering
b. acceptance c. cast out again
It was hungry. It went to meetings.
It spent a tenth of a day's wages to dance
with Riot & Exclusion.
It was not American.
It learned how to swim
but could still remember not knowing how to swim
& drowned.
It was evening.
It sat at the bottom of the Pacific & listened
to its eyes being eaten.