That Ability to Coexist

(After Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland)

“The last free place in America is a parking spot.”

Sell-o-rama!

Are you fascinated by the blurring
Of class lines?
You need not file yellowed papers
In triplicate.
You don’t need.
We don’t need.

We don’t need no stinking badges!

Everyone’s angling for a pay day.
We don’t offer much in the way of culture,
But we have skin like burnished leather.

We got a nude boogie woogie pianist.
We got men in codpieces
And bare asses.
We got women in coconut bras.
Sometimes wifi, sometimes cable TV.

We have:
Telephone pole size saguaros,
Kangaroo rats and roving packs
Of coyotes.

We got landscaped tattoos—
Salty Spiral Jetty
Surrounded Pink Islands
Stony Sheepfolds

It’s an indifferent human
Festival in camel costumes—
Come and sink
Into obscurity.

“The capitalists don’t want anyone living off their economic grid.”

— Jessica Bruder / Nomadland