Americana Doll Collection {Robert F Gross}
I
If Christine Mannon were Lana Turner
Abraham Lincoln would write
the Emancipation Proclamation
on a shovel and carry it to school
If the assassination were Imitation of Life
Ezra Mannon (Edward Everett Horton)
would walk the halls at night
draped in the Stars and Stripes
plotting his comeback as Mark Antony
down endless arcades of
cigar store Injuns
mummified preachers
Barbie dolls and
winged seraphs of Heaven
II
Sometimes it takes forever for white folk to realize dey is dead
the mammy tells her daughter
before she runs away
and becomes a showgirl
III
Mary Todd in the doll collection
smelling of scented soap
sings all-a-green-willow
embroiders late into night
recollects her marriages
to Raymond Massey
Daniel Day Lewis
Troy Donahue
Strom Thurmond
L. Ron Hubbard
(They were lovely dolls)
She hears Ezra pacing
the corridors of power
(No one sleeps in America)
Hast thou prayed tonight, Desdemona?
John Wilkes Booth as Othello enters from stage right to strangle Mary Todd
he's got the handkerchief he foams at the mouth he rolls his eyes
he doesn't understand that Mary Todd's a doll so when he squeezes tight
her head pops off and fireworks erupt to that everlovin' Sousa march
(sic semper tyrannis!) we never can remember the name of
IV
Sometimes it takes dem white folks forever to learn
dem lines rehearse all dem dramas
Dey don't remember nuffin
V
If history were Long Day's Journey into Night or
Peyton Place
Ezra would write the Assassination
Proclamation on a shovel
carry it to school and kill
his third-grade teacher
realize what he's done
a lifetime later his mouth
snaps opens like the nutcracker
he stiffens down the stairs
his black manservant holds him
Massa! Are you dead yet? Massa!
VI
Lana Turner enters putting on her gloves
and adjusting her Manifest Destiny
She knows she should deal with this
but it's morning in America again
time to shop time to cross the town
square thick with chrevolets and bison
