It slips, the mechanism
beyond reach and so
decide: empire hides
in your friends who
spend nights awake, dazed
in psych wards, prescribed
calming doses against
delusion that things lurch
because they do not fulfil
democratic duty to be
Greta and Greta and greater
than the sum of one in empire.

Beyond the slippery
mechanism of human
affairs, an older order
and so, observe: Linnaeus
naming, not parliament, riding
constituent members, but
kingdom, order, descending
specifically to res, the thing
without illusion blooming
clear as seasons, and yet
roses and other tender souls
die tattered at the edge of empire.

An older order enforces
tides, without regard for
whose ships lie at anchor or who
crouches like Toussaint under cover
looking down on freedom
slipping in and out of focus
Haiti will pay terribly and be hard
to see for what she is, the proof
that this is still imperial doing
they killed the lions long ago
whose form now stands for empire.

Toussaint himself (and surely his mother, too)
slips in an out of view: bloom where planted
eyes on some prescribed, proscribed prize
the compass of each arm’s reach kept
slight and easily cajoled
wiring minds onto trellises
reaching for just a thin particular breadth
of sky, nodding in agreement, we look
better this way, designed by our own
intelligence, and glaring at that cowboy impulse
that dismisses the question of empire
or democracy, and rides out howling one song, one
endless wild song. – ams

Today’s image is by Karen Anderson on pixabay.com. Wishing great prosperity to the proprietors of Boulangerie 4 Saisons, somewhere in Haiti with your gorgeous mango tree.