American Treasure by Jill McDonough

Author:Jill McDonough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alice James Books

My History of Lead

The Romans love it. Sweet and sour

in wine, sprinkled as salt on their suppers. Decline

and fall, poor Romans: go crazy. Let every wonder

burn. Turn to all of Europe, watch us learn

to poison our own. The French call it poudre

de la succession, a quick and easy way to get

to what we want. Come over here, to almost now:

we opaque our paint with it, make it quick to coat,

a glossy pleasure on the brush, until our babies take

up flakes from windowsills, doorjambs. We put it

in our gas, give it more oomph, less knock,

smooth the ride in cars as big as boats, smooth

as riding rails that we don’t bother to build.

Bad faith; we undermine our us, write our progress

off. In Flint for years the cars pour off the lines

in flocks, in shining lots. Now the sudden river

slips into pipes and spreads from house to house

while people sleep. And here we are, a stack of easy

metaphors: declining, falling, the bodies of the poor

all pave the way, their leaders knowing better,

knowing best. What we know and when we know it.

What we do for money, for a little bit of cash.

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