The Goldest Republic
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My state is burning. Meanwhile
my father works to restore the Coconut Grove
so that the unified teachers of Los Angeles
will have a luxurious place to lunch.
Maybe over PB&J they can discuss
the fact that it was here where RFK was shot.
When the Ambassador was demolished they said
California has no regard for its own history,
choosing always to trade the story for a spectacle.
And so what is our history, pray tell,
this place best known for walk-of-fame
pavement with sad stars, trampled on.
Stupid tourists wet themselves to discover
each television idol with his or her own
enameled scrap of celestial shit.
Hidden only ten miles or so out of reach—
the traces of orange groves with roots so deep
there are streets named for them.
We, who sweat on Christmas Day,
trading our supine meat slabs for
avocados accompanied by a Napa cabaret.
Our legacy stands proud and fresh.
Our bent state under a sky of perpetually
white clouds, white, like our uneaten pork fat.
Nudist beach as we approach yet another coastal crust
train tracks indicate that, yes, there it is,
the secret place that only locals can claim.
We exchange fluids there,
we manage with our clothes on;
we are clandestine for fear a naked man might spy us.
And what do we make?
A history? A legacy?
Probably just some starchy spots
on your little Lycra summertime shorts.
Sordid place, San Fernando, guides us
by sticky hand into the world of smut,
though another Valley yields silicon
(not that of Beverly Hills breasts),
but the tiny explosion that lets the Midwest
bid on Lladró using only a clicking finger.
It was, by the way, those same Spaniards who built
the adobe missions in our midst
and marked the spaces between them
with bells on the El Camino Real.
And so, warm state of wildfires,
you diligently serve up swerving highways where
we lost James Dean (thanks a lot),
and though we boast our poppy seeds and opiates,
our gluttony for gold and 1960s revolution,
we wonder when the Redwoods might grow
too diseased to shade us anymore,
as we proudly pledge our allegiance
to the bear and red star above our heads.
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