Flies

Your fan of golden hair oiled with rose and cinnamon

As your blood bloomed poppy red across your velvet coat

Your deep blue velvet coat

Yes, there in Montana prairie grass the Sioux shot Custer down

His red scarf tied, his black boots shined

How beautiful he looked to the flies, the happy kingdom of flies

Dear Custer there’s a Wal-Mart now where once the grizzlies roamed

Mountains of hair spray and cowboy shirts and everyone has a gun

Everyone still has a gun

But high in the rafters above the lights, red finches, they hide their nests

And when our cars drive out of sight they sing symphonies across the night

In their forest of heating pipes

And out past the parking lot along the curb in the wilds of weed and trash

Great armies of the smallest ants fight battles for the glory of their queen

Such a tiny glorious queen

But even the empress of the ants for whom ten thousand fall

Makes not a sound beneath the blades of our great empire of lawns

How quiet is the empire of lawns