NPR said money isn't getting to the children fast enough. Yeah, it's children. They say that it may be, in part, because the flooding happened over several days and wasn't a sudden inundation. They said if it was sudden, like a car wreck, people would identify and send more aid. Since it's slow, like cancer, they said many people were all like, "meh!" Can you believe it? Oh, and they have nukes. Just FYI n all.
I got a poem forthcoming in Breadcrumb Scab! It's my piece about sex slavery in America, "Escape from North Korea." I'd publish that one, but I can't really have it online. This coffee is pretty strong. It's Folgers Black Silk. We have coffee coming in the mail from Oregon where we went for my BFF's wedding. It's Fair Trade and Organic and All Natural, and Pakistani children are dying. Wonder what the Taliban is up to 'round those parts. Am I having a panic attack? I hope not, although the doctor IS in Wakefield this morning (we get doctors 2 days a week!). I sure can't wait for that Oregon coffee. Everyone drinks coffee up that way, and a lot of it! Do I need sugar? I do!
Three Million Pakistanis
When the flood becomes more intimate,
becomes a slow moving cancer
instead of immediate inundation,
a tree falling in a faraway forest
do we find it easier to ignore the thoracic burble?
Do we sleep in, greedy for relative peace
and the quiet of drier pillows? We had French toast
for our breakfast. The kids were tired
and we gave them hugs on their way
to the first day of school. The young one
had a sugary shirt, the old one no time to shower.
The wife and I made love last night. Enjoyed
the bodies moisture and mingled sweat. I remember
the blackberry scratches on my arm hurt a little.
I remember a mosquito’s desperate hum in my ear.
I poured a bucket of water onto dry, cracked ground
where grass had died in our back yard last
4th of July. Watched the dirt sop it up too quickly
to become mud. I heard water and food
were coming slowly because the water came slowly,
remember how I heard since it wasn’t quick like Katrina
the suffering quickly became blasé. Easier to ignore.
This coffee is strong, and it is priming my bowels to move.
I’ll most likely read a magazine
before flushing that part of me down.
