American Education

Looking at a map in fluorescent evening

drained of context like all maps, some ways

I saw no place, no past, no future, my self

of course, always my self but no region

no nation no state.

Incandescent evenings away from home

somewhere on a map, no sense of space

no sense of place, the names, the language,

the purpose someone so ignorant as I 

could serve is vague and thus it taunts,

it flirts.