What Happened to the Country

Some say the president declared the country his and took it home. Some say the country was wild turkeys waddling under the blind blue sky, deer leaping into the foliage, but hunters dispatched them into the next world. Some say that even though hundreds of trucks cranked their winches, the country sank into the quagmire and pulled the trucks down with it, bubbles bursting on the surface. Some say you can still find the country if you have the right map, but so many have followed their maps, disappearing without leaving behind a note or a sign. Though many remember the country with tears in their eyes, and many salute when they hear it called by name, though some decry the country as a false brotherhood, others believe it was an idea, and ideas evolve into other ideas or evaporate like rain beaded on window frames whose glass has been shattered. Without a country, without a piece of land, there is nothing to fight over, and now all of us are refugees walking in twos or threes toward nowhere anyone can imagine.