Waiting with the Donkey, Nick Lantz

NICK LANTZ

Waiting with the Donkey

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     And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and
     I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”
          —Genesis 22:5

Oh, America, you are those young fools
waiting by the donkey, while a madman
strops a knife and tells his son to look
the other way. You had a big breakfast—
sausage, egg like a temple’s golden dome
on its desert of toast, but now you’re bored,
so to pass the time, you take up a stick
to harry a lizard from bush to bush
while jets plow furrows in the fallow sky.
That sky belongs to every hawk you name
after yourself, and it’s full of invisible
voices. Someone may be listening, or maybe
not. But then the lizard bites you, and you
pick up a rock, and things get serious.