Correction

Danniel Schoonebeek

The question of whether the idea of America is dead is not a question.

A question by its definition does not cease to exist in the language.

You hear spoken by those who ask it. This is why the dead, if we say.

Where the living belong are the dead, are not a question. Think of a fire.

Eating its way across a battlefield. Breathing the air for which the dead.

No longer exist. Think of it searching the field for a good place to die.

The question of whether the fire is dead is not a question, as the question.

Of whether the fire is alive still exists in the language you hear spoken.

By those who ask it. This is why in America the idea of a fire is you eat.

More air than the dead can expire or else the earth you can’t stomach.

Devours you too. In America the idea of a fire is what you consume.

Is where you belong. Which is why where the earth belongs is the dead.

And why the only good place to die is where the idea of a fire does not.

Cease to exist in the language you hear spoken by those who ask it. 



Now my brother waits for me on the other side of the river


Watching the shadow factory

burn to the ground


Once he called across to ask if I worry


is a man catching fire

without warning


all you think we inherit from our father



And I told him to say it once more in our language


Before this year 

is done he said


do I wake up at the end of town


is my body thrown

through the windshield of my car


Which is when the country will long to say I’m finished 


When all that’s ours

is all a man leaves us


and all we continue is his reign over dirt 


Which is when my brother will cross the river


Like a fire eating its way across a battlefield


How I wonder he’ll say


if a family is waiting for me

a few years down the road