The parking lot was full of cars full of dead babies and thousands of court summonses. Then is now. I squat in the lot, looking at myself in the hubcaps' silver. Oh dear, beneath the bright artificial lights nothing is simple or clear. I see and see myself in the pigmented tinsel and the yellow chrome! -- and trust what I see. I felt sure of myself -- was able to approach my own alloy-plated identity! -- that great American wasteland! -- with some sense of chronic calm! And I stood up and cupped my eyes peering into the nearest car and after that I gazed at them all car by car till I understood that each infant death was my own. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALONE (2) by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE TIRED TIM by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE MONNA INNOMINATA, A SONNET OF SONNETS: 13 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE FOLLY OF BEING COMFORTED by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE NUANCES OF MENDACITY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THORWALDSEN by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH SOME SWEET DAY by LEWIS J. BATES MAXIMS FOR THE OLD HOUSE: THE EAVES by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH |