c-ration that stuffed my aunt did not
make her americanah with
that leftover g.i. stock she hoped
would also bring her canned dreams
what does it take to be paintstroked
by Sargent jeweled and
laced from head to toe

pink spam injected into the bloodstream
won’t make one minnesotan,
the difference of an exporter and importer,
colonizer and the colonized with a nine digit ssn,
i am canalled out into the land of the oreos
where everything is black and white
no room for me but my aunt knows not of it

my grandma in the peninsula still buys orange
fanta in packs that bob in the well cooling like
rubber ducky you’re the one while whole
bubbles rise next door to be set off by my countrymen
since the prison out in the open isn’t for us
walls will go up and bricks will be brought to
keep chinks in check and that will be a mirror
to which i learn the meaning of americanah