Auctioning America

Auctioning America

My American soul is sold out
To the highest bidder from a romance novel
Whose heroine was looking for a real man
But found a dime store, Romeo
On the dusty shelves which customers shun
Those paperbacks have sat there since the thirties
When they sold for a nickel a piece
But now the odds and ends go for a dollar
Including the heartbeat of a woman in solitude
To dream of the man I could be
If only I dusted off my loafers and went to work
But my shoes are beholden only to my feet
And they are predicting golf ball sized hail
In the garden of earthly delight
Where no dogs roam
And the only sound is a banjo picker
Taking us back to an Alabama
Where the rotting carcass of an opossum
Collects flies by the road