Nothing Rhymes With Gitmo Poem by Jaimee Hills

The monoglot might slip on guano-
toh-moh. You tell dogs git, and gung-ho
handy types'll get her done.
Git mo' for less. As slick as a Ginsu
we nick up names and butcher lingo.
The foreign sounds familiar, Gringo.

It's our pet name, a Geico gecko
or a Tamagachi gizmo,
our little pal, the tickle-me-Gitmo,
as common as your local Citgo.
We quickly fill the Winnebago
and sort the Logos from the logo.

A nimble moniker suited FloJo,
her name and legs, a quick glissando.
Consider celebrity: our Hojo,
J-Lo, Brangelina, Brando -
abstract concepts, magnificos.
Much too grand, their names are name-brands.

Consider the word snafu, like Garbo,
delicate, posh, a slight faux pas.
The war-born acrimony, acro-
nymed, gets lost to sound bite, footnote,
shortcut, whatnot. Charlie, Pinko,
Jerry. Consider how the Gingko

tree, botanical dynamo,
survived a bombed Hiroshima.
A hail of syllables can hit
like bullets on Geronimo.
Language survives this way. Now,
enunciate. Guantánamo.