Getting the Baby to Sleep

Sometimes the baby can’t reconcile

the self with the self: too hungry

to eat, too tired to sleep. I know

the feeling. O, America, on those nights

when you are too beautiful for me

to continue to forgive you any longer—

for allowing us to kill each other

with your graceless bullets, or exile

our neighbors across your fictitious

border, or argue over the ownership

of each young girl’s body as if its freedom

is a lie she must stop telling herself—

I go out into your radiant embrace.

The baby and I drive through your streets,

over the bridge and its light-chipped

waters, under a moon so big, so full

of itself that though I know it belongs

to the world, it can’t be anything but

American. I hang my arm out the window

and skim the air like touching skin.

I breathe you in, and the baby sleeps.