The Morning Reading: "people turned their beautiful sparkling angry faces up"

Poem for Wisconsin
by Matthew Zapruder


In Milwaukee it is snowing
on the golden statue
of the 1970s television star
whose television house
was in Milwaukee
and also on the Comet Cafe
and on the white museum
the famous Spanish architect
built with a glass
elevator through it
and a room with a button
that when you press it
makes two wings
on the sides of the building
more quickly than you might
imagine mechanically
rise like a clumsy
thoughtful bird
thinking now
I am at last ready
over the lake
that has many moods
to fly but it will not
and people ask
who are we who see
so much evil and try
to stop it and fail
and know we are no longer
for no reason worrying
the terrible governors
are evil or maybe
just mistaken and nothing
can stop them not even
the workers who keep
working even when
it snows on their heads
and on the bridge
that keeps our cars
above the water
for an hour
in northern California
today it snowed
and something
happened people
turned their beautiful
sparkling angry faces up




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