The Country in Which I Was Born

The country in which I was born

cannot be seen anymore

you can smell it sometimes

turning a corner, crossing a sewer

or underneath the trees that take

the power-line between their flowers;

sometimes crossing drainage ditches

between streets you can hear it sing

and the abutments of city blocks

rub together like chafed skin

on a cobbler’s wheel

trying to make chamois out of cow tongue;

and the children running

in between the cars where I was born

do not know there was ever any earth

between these two rivers of sand.

I sit. I hear the start

of rush hour over my coffee

and somewhere the little house

where I was born is full of nothing.