“California”
by
David Berman
first published in Caliban #8, 1990
It’s a movie based on a true story,
it’s a fat boy on a train with a dollar,
it’s got no cavities
and God on its shoulder.
Red meat, white people and blue skies,
it’s 50 states stuck together with barbecue sauce.
If you’re poor, someone will cry for you.
A cup of water is free
and the slave population here is zero.
From Arizona’s desert drug factories
to the hot sidewalks of Little Rock
to Florida’s Jewish beaches
people feel good about themselves
and their bodies.
Of course it’s hard to forget the kids outside Pittsburgh
who are into sorcery and stuff,
and the crooked men and women of Nevada dreaming of crime
in their blackened houses.
But on Sunday, when balloons float above the stadium,
and the highways stretch like cats under the hot sun,
we drive to the pool knowing the wheels could fall off,
and even California loves its future ocean grave.
Biblioklept 