This Is Not America

(Bowie, 1985)

I must have played it a thousand times that summer, Gulf of Mexico, 2005—to and from the mainland, up and down the coast in search of fossils.

I met a woman from Sarasota, a mad sea turtler who was allergic, as I was,to the infamous red tide that arrived killing shellfish my third week on the key.

We couldn't breathe out there so we hunkered down where winged palmettosperched along the rim of the kitchen at night and a ghost that resembled

Ralph Nader swam up and down the stairs while I tried to write—and I didn'twrite much—red tide, turtles birthing, worst hurricane season in Atlantic history

starting up. They say that after Katrina a lot of Americans switched parties,but it only lasted through one election. Sometimes sadness provides an entrance

to imagination. Other times it calls on a person to grieve. I was grieving in advancethat June. My heart was breaking as the first storm pounded the house with the divebombing

roaches and the impotent ghost—my American words holding their breath.