I encountered Lady Liberty attired
in a soiled toga hitching north to Canada.
Hop in, I said, but you’ll have to stash
that torch in the trunk. She kicked off
her sandals and propped her bare feet
on the dashboard, ten lacquered piggies.
Little did I know but that the FBI was
hot on her trail, deploying black ops
with orders to commit unspeakable acts.
The chaos in Nantucket defies comprehension,
she said. The lobster palace is rife with intrigue,
the waiters accept rubles in exchange for
naval blueprints, including the latest schooner,
while operatives from alien parts stroll openly
through the market noshing on poppy rolls.
You could get right furious, she said, watching
how those villainous foreigners take liberties
with the local girls who stem from good stock.
When I left town the evangelical choir faded away,
only to be replaced by the swish of tandem trucks
hauling merchandise up and down the interstate.
Military convoys, their tarps snapping commands,
vacationers pounding the wheel in frustration –
and migrants like myself crouched beneath the dash,
dreading interrogation in a slime-green room,
admitting to anything, implicating everyone
at the mere sight of those spattered instruments.
They don’t make handcuffs like in the antiwar days,
no, standards have been declining for some time.
Just look at the fries consumed in yon franchise,
carbs that will only briefly sate our carnivores,
and see upon that dumpster how raptors throng
unperturbed by the precariat smoking skank.
Oh, that I were cast from iron and not copper
that my arm had the strength of an avenger,
that I could hammer our founder’s phallus flat!
A mousy kid when not articulating phantasies,
Lady Liberty waxes vocal on the subject of sex:
We women of the night, obliged to carry torches
now that the utilities are running out of power,
have often contemplated flight; yet our boys left
behind, unloved, will probably turn rancorous.
So driver, stop right here while the traffic slows!
Jumping the rail, she crosses the southbound lane.
Righting her diadem, she sticks out her thumb.