by Anne Stevenson
'Living in America,'
the intelligent people at Harvard say,
'is the price you pay for living in New England.'
Californians think
living in America is a reward
for managing not to live anywhere else.
The rest of the country?
Could it be sagging between two poles,
tastelessly decorated, dangerously overweight?
No. Look closely.
Under cover of light and noise
both shores are hurrying towards each other.
San Francisco
is already half way to Omaha.
Boston is nervously losing its way in Detroit.
Desperately the inhabitants
hope to be saved in the middle.
Pray to the mountains and deserts to keep them apart.
"Living in America" by Anne Stevenson, from Anne Stevenson: Selected Poems. © American Poets Project, 2008.
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