Freedom of Speech by Nicole Terry She held a sign beneath her chin that spelled America w/an “F”. She smiled behind grey teeth & a perfect paradise tan. I thought I might weep softly for a moment, then tell her her America was spelled wrong in some foreign tongue I would invent to sound glamorous & unafraid like I was, but I was afraid & horribly ungraceful; so I spoke English instead, laughed instead of cried. She misunderstood all my philanthropic fireworks. Her smile faded quickly away into bewilderment. & all I can remember now is being America (I hope I spelled that right every time). But I think I’m going to spell it like that from now on, writing it on all the walls across America (spelled w/an “A”) until some giant blueboy tackles me to the American earth & rips the chalk from my sick hands & arrests me for spelling my America so dreadfully, in such an un-American way. I’d hold on until my fingers bled & smile like I didn’t understand, like I understood all the BlueBoys of America. But he wouldn’t & he’d weep & tell me I was doing it all wrong. ”All wrong, you poor foreign fool!” I wouldn’t believe him, instead I’d finally weep that weep I should have wept before, already forgetting all the right & wrong ways to spell Americans hanging desperately onto tattered flags in dead spaces. Then, only then, could I let the chalk fall from my burning, bleeding fingers. So it could all come to this: not just a word, but simply A M E R I C A.  © Copyright 2008 Nicole Terry ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   [back to Poems] [Sensual Poetry]