My Country – Tony Hoagland

When I think of what I know about America,
I think of kissing my best friend’s wife
in the parking lot of the zoo one afternoon,

just over the wall from the lion’s cage.
One minute making small talk, the next
my face was moving down to meet her

wet and open, upturned mouth.
It was a kind of patriotic act,
pledging our allegiance to the pleasure
and not the consequence, crossing over the border

of what we were supposed to do,
burning our bridges and making our bed
to an orchestra of screaming birds

and the smell of elephant manure. Over her shoulder
I could see the sun, burning palely in the winter sky
and I thought of my friend, who always tries

to see the good in situations—how an innocence
like that shouldn’t be betrayed.
Then she took my lip between her teeth,

I slipped my hand inside her skirt and felt
my principles blinking out behind me
like streetlights in a town where I had never

lived, to which I never intended to return.
And who was left to speak of what had happened?
And who would ever be brave, or lonely,

or free enough to ask?