A History of the United States
In my
arms, like a baby, an old book
Her
spine is leather, cracked yet supple
From
Keen, Jr. & Brother, Bookvendors
No. 146
Lake Street, Chicago
A History of the United States
Between
pages 314 and 315 a flower
Is
pressed, and “an awful silence”
Prevails
among the spectators
And
girls line the road with garlands
To sing
an ode for the troops
In the
Appendix, weapons, ships, officers
Headquarters
of the General-in-Chief, Washington
Those of
the Western Department are at Memphis
Fifty-one
sea going vessels, an Army of 7,168
With a
militia of 1,311,569
Engraved
campaigns, captures, evacuations
Jackson
ordered to reduce Seminoles, page 395
Gracing
our twenties, hair like a flag, since 1928
When the
Dow blew while reservations slept
In
corners of smoke and dust and still
In the
Appendix, charts of Indians, 1836
Removed: 31,357.
To be removed: 72,181
Between
the Mississippi and the Rockies: 150,341
Says the
Secretary of War, “…the Indians are totally
Ignorant
of their own relative strength…”The book, for sale while at War with Mexico
The one
Thoreau refused to pay for
Polk’s,
Buena Vista, Taylor, Santa Ana
But the
book ends, page 435. We will
Storm
Chapultepec. Gain California
When
Fremont raises a grizzly bear flag
At
Monterey. Then the Gold Rush & Chinese
Ishi the
last Yahi, and I will be born
There a
hundred twenty years later
During
Vietnam
In the
Appendix, populations in columns
1830:
102,994 slaves reside in Maryland
In the
back of a Baltimore police van
The
spinal column of Freddie Gray is severed
One
hundred and eighty-five years later
What is
our country’s history without murder
Land,
gold and little wars?--page eighty-eight
Built by
the pious sweat of pioneers
On a
generous earth, with faith in our arms
Cradling
God in our books
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