Television

I can’t recall which came first,
the public channel, the
knowledge of the worm,
that it has intestines, kidneys,
that it bears young,
pushes them out
into a slow mortality,
the bait of history.
Perhaps it was that larger procession
on channel six,
the 4th of July people parading
up the swollen street,
the fat man in the starched uniform,
wedded to loving a flag,
blind as a country.
The slow sadness fills us all,
we walk, we crawl.