One crisp winter morning,
I stood in my a.m. bathroom ritual listening
to AM radio as I scrubbed and brushed.
The AM god pontificated about welfare and bleated
that farmers get the most welfare of all,
which is unfair.
He continued, arrogantly, that he has a restaurant in
San Somewhere-
Diego Francisco I don't know it doesn't matter-
and that he would not get welfare
if his restaurant failed.
I thought of my grandfather bent
under the wrath of weather
with dry wheat crumpling like old dust through his fingers.
I remembered him poking through the remnants
of hail storms and tornados.
I told the AM man
that he could have his welfare
if I could put a twister through his restaurant
in San Somewhere.
I laughed because it was the most ignorant
thing I had heard all day
and I had gotten it out of the way
early.
But I was wrong.
I went, later, with my mom to visit a
church friend,
who was so pristine that her suburban townhouse
didn't even have a smell.
I was bored sipping on wine and banal chatter.
The church lady gossiped about a woman
across the street.
She was going to marry a black man!
And that wasn't even the worst of it!
My mother's eyes flashed at me to be polite.
I was mad to be locked in the same room with
stupidity,
so I drank a lot more wine.
kmb 12/01
