I'm in bed with America.
America is writhing and moaning in her sleep,
twisting the bed sheets around her
as if coiled in the grip of a giant boa constrictor.
America whimpers in her sleep
and turns her head to the left and to the right.
America is having a nightmare.
America is dreaming that the Inquisition
is back with its old, unimproved tortures.
America is dreaming that the British won
the Revolutionary War and that Franklin,
Washington and Jefferson were hanged at Valley Forge.
America is dreaming that she must increase
her nuclear arsenal because being able
to destroy the world 5,000 times over isn¹t enough
if Russia can destroy the world 6,000 times over.
America is dreaming that the southern plantations
have risen from the dust, and the whips and manacles
the torch and the hood and the noose.
America is dreaming that water is rising
around her house and she can't get out
because the EPA has boarded up the doors and windows.
America is dreaming that drinking melted polar ice
has changed her children into Syrian refugees.
America is dreaming that her babysitter
is a registered sex offender.
America is dreaming that her real parents
are dead and impostor parents are forcing
her into the family business of carnival geeking.
America is dreaming that Lincoln has just
shot everyone in Ford's Theater.
America is dreaming that she¹s feeling faint
after drinking the cup handed to her by Putin.
America is dreaming that she has nothing left
to eat but the money dragged from the vaults
after the last billionaire committed suicide.
America is dreaming that Whitman and Emerson
have pulled up their grave plots and
relocated them to Ontario.
America is dreaming that all the blood shed by patriots
in her wars has congealed into a malignant tumor
kept in a secret room in the White House.
America is dreaming that Henry Ford has
returned from the dead to help the President
rewrite the Constitution in 144 characters.
America is dreaming that when the Pilgrims
go out to the woods for the first Thanksgiving
all they can find to shoot are skeletons.
America is dreaming that the Italians and Irish
and Poles have been sent back where they came from
across the Atlantic in individual wooden washtubs.
America is dreaming that beneath the site of the World Trade Center
are anti-towers deep underground where
the real masterminds of September 11th
are plotting a new attack.
America is dreaming that the President has hacked
Jesus's twitter account
and is repealing the Sermon on the Mount.
America is dreaming that a tiny severed hand
is creeping along the floor like a pale spider
toward the Button.
America is dreaming that a vast stone head
from an exploded planet's Mount Rushmore
is hurtling toward Indiana.
America is dreaming—STOP!
America, can you hear me?
(I'm shaking you by the shoulders.)
I wouldn't be in bed with you if I didn't love you.
Spare yourself this nightmare.
It doesn't have to be this way.
There is still time.
America, dear America, please wake up!
Thomas R. Smith is a poet and teacher living in River Falls, Wisconsin. He teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. His most recent poetry collection is The Glory (Red Dragonfly Press).
