This is America at Kroger. Grocery shopping, packed aisles, children crying, entire families dancing with boxes of corn flakes. Masks like a shell game on a city street, a crap shoot, a carnival ring toss, who knows, don’t stomp my snake it’ll bite back, don’t hide my mouth from god’s lips. Stars and bars on arms and cars, pride in an ass whooping, a history of blood on hands and states on fire. Brass horses over black lives, they whisper to one another in the international foods aisle. Lung damage for my cousins over light facial coverage. This is the America that shotguns Marlboros. This is the America of spoiled brats and Caligula. Forget the charities, forget the pride parades, forget the stormed beaches and dead fascists, forget the movies and the rock and roll, forget the hypocritical parchment of freedom signed by slave owners, forget the flags on the Moon. This is America addicted to atomic bombs. This is America shooting fireworks up its own ass. This is America fighting itself over day-old bread.