The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin Poets, 2008) {Illustrations} I. Tourists Beware 1 Proof Text 2 After the Flood All the Condoms Fall Off 4 Young Ukrainians 5 Patriot Acts 6 Appalachian Canticle 8 Please Present This Card at Ascension Church on Saturday, November the 4th 9 Seersucker 10 Before vodka arrived on the scene 11 Brilliant Pebbles 12 Pretzels Come to America 14 Meditation on the Golden Gate Bridge 15 To Step in God’s Cloud 16 Holy Sonnet 17 Bow Job 18 Hope, prosthesis for 19 The Holidays 20 Plagiarism 21 SIDS 22 II. A Brief History of Patriotism 24 Poem for the U.S. Department of Agriculture 27 J.J. Audubon 28 A Few Inches of Dead Flesh 29 Suicide Poem 30 Chagall Takes a Prisoner 31 I’ll Take “Notable Artists of the 20th Century in Couplets,” Please, Alex 32 Leni Riefenstahl 36 Adorno 38 Narcissism 40 A Source of Style 41 Dear Mr. Whitman, 42 Rosa Parks 43 Estimada Sra. Dear Abby: 44 The Supercomputer Finally Answers Charles Manson 45 Oedipus 46 Fabliau 47 Spell to Bring Me Osama bin Laden 49 Nightie, take back the 50 III. Green Zone New Orleans 52 IV. September 12 66 Last Flight Out of a State of Mind 69 Firefighter Song 70 For a Young Male Poet 71 Funeral Direction 72 Patriot Acts 73 New Pathways to Peace in the Middle East 75 Unknown Soldier 76 A Truth Is Subject To Its Title 77 For a Suicide Bomber 79 The Bath of Resistance 80 Embedded 81 Panopticon 82 Interview with the Executioner 83 My Initial Dwelling in Non-Existence 84 The Blueprint Effect 85 Patriot Acts 86 Dinner Party 87 Reader/Reaper 88 An Untenable Nostalgia for Chernobyl 89 Notes 91 Acknowledgments 93