Interlude With Gypsies and Tambourines Poem by Christian Hawkey

Wait a minute. We're not finished with you.
We were discussing the Indefatigable Ones
at a time of Maximum Perforation and Wonders,
the bodies of crows plummeting earthward,

stiffly, thudding onto your porch and you,
you were wearing your Silence Helmet as if it
were a crown, as if it were a kind of prayer.
You can't pay attention to this world on your knees.

And desire isn't a tin can taken into the woods
and shot at; it's a tin can shot to hell
and swallowed, piece by piece, while a crow
laughs—bouncing through the limbs—insanely.

You were checked for explosive residue.
You spread your legs. You emptied your days
into a white plastic bucket. You removed your belt.
You removed your shoes. You removed your heart,

a fistful of shrapnel. You were asked to step aside,
you were asked to step outside, onto the tarmac,
onto a plane—you were being deported,
although no ships were within sight,

and the others that were with you began
to hold hands, began to stammer a song, whoso
list to hunt, in the bee-loud glade,
drowned out by turbines, shifting metal flaps,

along a string of lights the plane taxied,
it made a right and kept moving, it made a right
and kept moving, it made another right
and kept moving—we never left the ground.

We were growing old. We started families.
We call ourselves a nation. We have many children.
This is our flag. It will fit in your pocket.
Thank you for the coffee. Can we go now?