Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Her face shiny from plastic surgery,
the rich, old, taught-skinned woman from Florida
on a luxury cruise to the Arctic Circle
saw the midnight sun and said:
"Is that the same sun we have in Florida?"
Yes, lady. The very same.

The same sun that shines on you
and your car and your pool
and your lawn which the man
who frightens you a bit because he's poor, and black
and might one day rape you,
cuts to within half an inch its life
every week.
The same sun that shines
on the child who lives in a shack
on empty, fly-blown land
on which misery grows
outside Harare, and his
father's dead of AIDS and his
mother's dying too, and
he never has clean water to drink, and
his body's covered in sores.

The same sun, Ma'am, that shines
on Darfur's daily dying, and
the pain and poverty and deprivation
which those mascara eyes
poking out from
expensive rejuvinating face creams never see,
because they never want to.

And inside the head behind them,
ignorance feasts and swells with fat.

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