BARGAINS (THE TEMERITY OF INDIFFERENCE)

by E.F. Schraeder


It isn’t just the drilling, but the threat of more
spills and costs, all waste then loss

degenerating fragile feathers dripping and slick
with the thick pasty sludge of inevitable tragedy.

The latest impasse, a blow from a southpaw,
struck me just below idealism,

sucker punched hope in the mouth.
Finally, I’m a believer in apathy.

Keeping up the pace until we’re lost,
behind again, the lot of us driving on.

Look beneath every crop of bright yellow
genetically altered corn planted where prairie

used to be, just north of the spot where migrating
mammals meet border fences or highways.

While the offshore account giants calculate
thirteen ways to charge for sunbeams

citizens turned consumers continue to revolve,
doors to a shopping mall,

in absurd suburban details requiring 40 miles or more
a day, decapitating sorrow into sprawl.


E.F. Schraeder's work recently appeared in the anthology Kicked Out (Sassafras Lowery, ed.), and she holds a Ph.D. studying ethics and social justice.
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