One Hundred Ordinary American Women


Each the same
In body, in sadness,
One hundred who has each lost one
Publicly show their grief.
From twenty to sixty, their unmade faces
Are blotched by years of tears
Their bared breasts are withered
The skin cracked, they are out
For the death of the President
For the end of America, America.
From town and city, on and on
Through Bible belt and metropolis
The cavalcade passes
In knocked-out jalopies
Bearing no banners
But their own grey faces.
Their unwashed stinking bodies
Make a century of sorrow
Without plan or map
They make their pilgrimage,
In square and boulevard
They expose their bodies.
To stunned crowds who gape
They chorus a howl of grief,
Splitting the baked earth with their ache.
While guardsmen load up and look on
America is ravaged,
Hands in dark alleys
Liars in public places
Guns all over and
One hundred ordinary American women
Each the same.