What color is England today?
Purple, maybe, or beige—
not green, necessarily:
The imaginary line passes through
Gren-itch, not Green-witch.

If we pull down the United States map,
I can see the route we took to get here,
a slice across the top. What I remember
is the Rainier Beer commercial,
replaying it over and over in my head

in a motel room somewhere, making myself
sad and eerie over the slim chance
that I would ever hear it again:

Raaaaaaaaainieeeeeeerrrrr Beeeeeeeerrrrr
as a man on a motorcycle approached
the mountain we used to own.

I thought I wanted to tell you about
the hundreds of monarchs, squashed
on the grille of our Chevy Caprice Classic.
But they were not important yet;

I still wore the heartlessness of a child,
a metal exoskeleton around me as we
crossed a line we would never cross again,
not in the same way. Never going home.

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Today’s Poem a Day Chapbook Challenge prompt was “prime.”