[ RF ] Instead of scrapping the Russian submarine 's and ships it bought , Pepsi goes to war with Coke

You would never say it out loud, 
 
 But you think me second best. 
 
 You shine, red and white 
 
 Above Olympics and World Cups, 
 
 And in every Christmas and Independence Day memory. 
 
 I wait in the shadowy corridors, 
 
 In combination Pizza Hut-KFCs 
 
 Among traumatized veterans and the forgotten 
 
 Children of inner cities; 
 
 Among all for whom the promise of fairness in America 
 
 Was never really true; 
 
 Among those who awoke from dreams to find only 
 
 Wrought iron gates shuttering the bank tellers' windows. 
 
 * 
 
 Nobody ever asks for me. 
 
 Am I okay, instead of you, the waitress will ask. 
 
 You have declared yourself Friendship 
 
 And Love and the Heart of America 
 
 On billboards, shining in pickup truck headlights 
 
 And in so many mi do re mi dos 
 
 Wedged between sitcoms about family 
 
 And a superhero's triumph over tyranny 
 
 Or the coronation of a clarion-voiced singer 
 
 Declared our new Sweetheart. 
 
 It costs me millions to have a Britney or Beyonce 
 
 Stand beside me, 
 
 And never at the zenith of their fame. 
 
 I have sent skinny girls in denim shorts onto hot summer sidewalks 
 
 To set us beside each other like suspects lined up before an eyewitness 
 
 To prove it is n't taste. 
 
 To prove it was never taste. 
 
 But it is your shape or associations or nuances 
 
 Like Mozart or Jordan that set you above me. 
 
 Above me always. 
 
 * 
 
 America has sided with you and not me, 
 
 So I no longer side with America. 
 
 I will be the Siberian wolf that kills polar bears and eagles 
 
 When they are not watching. 
 
 * 
 
 You are no freely chosen Senator; 
 
 You are a Tsar who has barricaded himself 
 
 In a Winter Palace, 
 
 Who must be dragged out onto the street, 
 
 Who will have his crown stripped by the oppressed, 
 
 No longer subjects but Subjects. 
 
 I will join with those who have waged this fight before, 
 
 Who have already traced your bumpy hourglass silhouette 
 
 In the false, rotten core of capitalism. 
 
 * 
 
 In the cafes on Tverskaya Street 
 
 They already ask for me first, you know. 
 
 Soon I will see my name rise in glowing Cyrillic 
 
 Over Pennsylvania Avenue and Fenway Park. 
 
 

