News Poetry: On the Declining Value of the Dollar

One hundred, becomes ninety-eight,
becomes eighty-two, becomes sixty-one,
and so on. A corpse dripping blood
is still a corpse. Though if you gather
the drippings, you can make a soup
on which thin children might feed.

Or stray dogs. How they like to lick the pot
until they see, in the shiny bottom, their own
ravenous faces, which makes them go berserk,
howling, and tearing at each other – exactly
what we need for the dollar to rise, for markets
to open, to make America great again.

 

 

Photo credit: Frankieleon, Creative Commons, Flickr
Jose A. Alcantara is a former construction worker, baker, commercial fisherman, math teacher, and studio photographer. He currently works in a bookstore in Aspen, Colorado. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, Spillway, Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, and 99 Poems for the 99%.

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