by Jon Wesick
We didn’t find it in Baltimore or Huntsville
not in Tucson, Seattle, Philly, or Washington DC.
Kangaroo courts, rigged elections, cops beating
suspects in back rooms, the poor barred from hospitals,
families with both parents working going under.
That ain’t America!
So with the help of a 58’ trawler yacht, the Able Marie,
six of us went looking. We boarded in Valparaiso Chile,
sailed through Panama up to Halifax and shadowed
container ships across the North Atlantic.
Where did America go? Antwerp? Rotterdam? Hamburg?
Different players – same crooked game.
Marseilles, Piraeus, Jeddah, Dubai, Mumbai,
Singapore, Hong Kong, Kobe – not there either.
Still seeking our lost country we steer
toward the Southern Cross. For now America exists
only on this teak deck, washed with spray
and tossed by 40’ waves.
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards.