‘American Ode’ by Paulina Mazur

America, you laugh out hugely out of a map
Inside my memory you lie flat– resplendent

Your falsetto and faint sunrises with which
you blushed.

I’d like to say: how innocent

you are! But it is my youth which was that
as you carelessly cradled me

inside your songs which I had
sang off key, when everyone
sung by heart their Country this of thee

I sang astray. America, I was never true

And yet, America, what would I do?
without your neon lights that led me

to the highway ribbed and beauty twisted
the contradicting and contradicted – You.