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...THE LAST MAN'S CLUB by JAMES GALVIN OWL AGAINST ROBIN by SIDNEY LANIER THE DAY OF THE DEAD SOLDIERS; MARY 30, 1869 by EMMA LAZARUS DOMESDAY BOOK: BARRETT BAYS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS AN ISLAND (SAINT HELENA, 1821) by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |