Texas

Balanced heftily
en pointe
at Gulf and Rio Grande—
she shleps her load:
other states cohere
in bond of terror,
holding tight
to keep from tipping her,
crushing Florida or, worse,
rolling backward
over rounded California coast
and falling, tumbling
into the libertine
chaos
of unattached land.

Ponderous on her toe,
she bears the weight
of Rockies and the vast Missouri:
civilization and ruin
beyond the empty death
that makes gas in her bowel.
Perpetual shifting
of people and ideas requires
a gyroscopic
legislature and winds.
Why shouldn’t her people be dizzy
and her bluebonnets undulating
as her toe bends
and strains for solid purchase?