The empire is in my pocket asking to hold $5.

A billion billion years ago, I was a thought riding

in a universe-heavy grain of sand and now Gavin Newsom

is sending me a “You Up?” text on the 15th

of every month. The state wants to know if I’ll fund

its fumblings. I’m to be convinced there’s a gun law

that won’t pass without my two cents. My taxed

income is needed to bomb a nation I can’t find

on any map America drew. If you hold a dollar

to the light, you’ll see the Eagle twist its beak

into a slur. You’ll see the White House laughing

underneath its unlabored breath. A billion years ago,

everything that is wrong with this country

hadn’t happened yet. O, nation of Mammon,

you found God and killed him. We were a miracle

of the universe and now we argue if children deserve

three meals a day. Once, there was a field

in a nameless country waiting for the sky

to break open. There were our names pocketed

in the wet of the Earth. There was a child,

however unmade, waiting for a dark

to sleep through unbothered.