Worldly Things by Michael Kleber-Diggs

Author:Michael Kleber-Diggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

AMERICA IS LOVING ME TO DEATH

America is loving me to death, loving me to death slowly, and I

Mainly try not to be disappeared here, knowing she won’t pledge

Even tolerance in return. Dear God I can’t offer allegiance.

Right now, 400 years ago, far into the future—it’s difficult to

Ignore or forgive how despised I am and have been in the

Centuries I’ve been here—despised in the design of the flag

And in the fealty it demands (lest I be made an example of).

In America there’s one winning story—no adaptations. The

Story imagines a noble, grand progress where we’re all united.

Like truths are as self-evident as the Declaration states.

Or like they would be if not for detractors like me, the ranks of

Vagabonds existing to point out what’s rotten in America,

Insisting her gains come at a cost, reminding her who pays, and

Negating wild notions of exceptionalism—adding ugly facts to

God’s favorite-nation mythology. Look, victors get spoils; I know the

Memories of the vanquished fade away. I hear the enduring republic,

Erect and proud, asking through ravenous teeth, Who do you riot for?

Tamir? Sandra? Medgar? George? Breonna? Elijah? Philando? Eric? Which

One? Like it can’t be all of them. Like it can’t be the entirety of it:

Destroyed brown bodies, dismantled homes, so demolition stands

Even as my fidelity falls, as it must. She erases my reason too, allows one

Answer to her only loyalty test: Yes or no, Michael, do you love this nation?

Then hates me for saying I can’t, for not burying myself under

Her fables where we’re one, indivisible, free, just, under God, her God.

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