The Gulf of America

The Gulf of America

The Mississippi got sick and tired
Of running south and so one night
Stopped and started running north
Towards the fathering springs 
Of northern Minnesota a state 
Which it proceeded to drown 
Like a son whose coming home
Overwhelms his parents and soon
It was one big lake which is what
Minnesota has always wanted to be
Anyway and it wasn’t long before
The so-called “Gulf of America”
Dried up and migrants settled it
The ground so rich and fertile
With good American topsoil that
It became the world’s new breadbasket 
While the farmers of the Upper
Mississippi River Valley who’d voted
To have their workers deported
Lost what little they still had 
And settled for government handouts
Day-drinking and fishing a river
They’d known since they were boys
To run what they’d always 
Thought was the only way