Mimicry

by Jan MacRae

Americans think
this is the best country:
box stores and strip malls.
Garden gnomes posed peeing.
Near the aisle selling
pistols, row after row
of dog toys.
No Eurasian Jays here
in the states, birds
pinkish with brilliant blue
front of the wings.
“Skraak-shraak” is their voice,
along with mimicry,
including vultures.  I would 
like to be able to imitate 
a vulture here in America,
where the living are often faced 
with dead around us,
in the faces of that family posing
with their automatic weapons 
around the Christmas tree.
The meth freaks begging 
for change,  for change,
not the coins 
someone gives them outside 
of the farmer’s market.
Sandyhook didn’t happen,
says the conservative talk show host.
I listen like a vulture
ready to rend flesh.
I am violent too, believing 
a thousand words
are worth a picture.
I am definitely
my country’s progeny, 
my bright plumage as
necessary as camouflage
as I line up on the other side.