To know this country
is to not know placard
 
from public assembly.
Not know smiley
 
from sully. Not know
the difference between
 
the mirror and myself
and Marxist.
 
In this museum
without her critics,
 
politicians fill object
labels, frame the everyday
 
in its wary diction:
Duchamp's urinal
 
a mouth to entrap
men soliciting
 
sperm. A gold staircase
dreams of climbing itself
 
out of its lease. Reading
on trains translate
 
to proselytising. So many
misgivings, I want to
 
assure them: there is more
in my world than me
 
and my rejoinder to you.
Let down your guard,
 
paranoid boxer. This poem
is and isn't about you.