“The New America!” A brash mosaic
of colors, creeds, and pieties besides
until it all becomes a bit prosaic.
William Montgomery, I heard, has died,
coughing through a cold he couldn’t shake
from dampness that had clung two hundred years
to family names. Or was it for our sake
that he expired? Try to stanch your tears.

He left a note, though suicide’s ruled out.
His was a different vector of despair—
a weakened chin, advancing flares of gout,
a vague, unwholesome vapor in the air.

You can’t think that you’re rid of me. I live
in every monument in every town,
in every sin too hideous to forgive,
in western fields, fallow now, and brown.

I am the thinner in your children’s blood.
I am the cancer in your cigarette.
I’m Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Elmer Fudd.
Don’t think you’ve gotten rid of me quite yet.

So don’t send flowers. Give to charity—
the church of your choice, or this week’s favorite cause.
For God’s sake keep your head down, and you’ll see
you won’t change many minds—or any laws.