There are no fireworks
Exploding over the heads
Of the Americans
Fighting the evening heat.
It is Goya's sky
That covers them --
Not Norman Rockwell's.
Andalusia poses
As Montana or Wyoming
As two Spaniards
Dressed as cowboys
Ride slowly on horseback
Among the hundreds here.
Cocktail glasses are shaken
Like Vegas dice by diplomats
In double-breasted suits
And evening dresses.
The military men and women
Suffer from heat rash
As their thumbs
And forefingers
Pry their collars free
From the flesh of the wet neck.
Republicans and Democrats
Experience amnesia and are polite
To one another in front of guests
Who go on and on about the glass house
In Nigeria, built by the NBA star
Who makes more money than the generals
And politicians who run their country.
At the end of the long, grey driveway,
On the green, manicured lawn that
Reminds so many of New England in the summer,
Are table after table of food and drink,
Where hundreds feed on the shavings
Of a rich nation too embarrassed
Over its wealth to call itself an empire.
Neil Raymond Ricco
U.S. Embassy
Madrid, Spain