Grandma’s Plagiarized Walt Whitman Copy
I’m going to smuggle through the border
tucked in my bra strap
where I used to hide cellphones and candy
When the night guards are otherwise engaged
and Gabriel’s out for the count
I’ll tiptoe to the throne, even though
we’ll both hear the trumpeting echoes of glass and gold
and God will turn, for modesty
while I cough up the yellow slip, smooth it
on His Lordship’s coffee table
and we’ll ache like children
at the womanly curves of her pen
and we’ll smile like idiots
and He’ll read for me in his whiskey voice:
O Captain! my Captain!
our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack,
The prize we sought is won.
