When You Grow Up in America’s Secret City

You are not surprised when your phone is tapped,
when the ghost in the machine is discovered.

Your conspiracies started in your very bones,
your DNA swept up and stored in ruins.

Your horoscope a horror. Born in a laboratory
under the watchful eyes of research scientists,

you were never one to wander. You were raised by robots,
under the light of an ill moon, observed by a parliament of owls.

Your whole childhood is a conspiracy theory, and the vault
of your records will be locked until 2050. There were rumors

of witchcraft, of wrongdoing. Don’t trust the written word
or the whispers of cabals. Keep your government ties

hidden. Bury the letters and follow the lead;
watch the marks on the gravestones in Cades Cove.

Say goodbye to the radioactive rain, the swallows
singing of fallout. So many years in the mountains

with the voices underground, their breath a toxic cloud.
Forgive the braid of conspiracies that lead

to unlocking my history. We can’t ever trace
the whole truth, the blood cells, the mutations,

there’s no telling. The outline, the outlier.
The music of mutants. One less lie and liar.