(for Linda Panky, Elmer Johnson, Leonard, Rachid, Greg, etc. etc. etc. who may have contributed great things if it hadn't been for racism)
The flow of my life a beaver's dam
thick with mud and muddied breath,
muddy graft and the mud of corruption,
corruption of language, corruption of use.
Death is always an inconvenience,
the dialysis machine filling itself with souls,
blood pressure rising, falling, rising.
On the best of days she is too old to vote;
on the worst, too young to abandon ship.
Once she published a newspaper article
bylined everything good with this world
so much to begin, so little left at the end.
