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Sunday, November 21, 2010

HOW TO TELL THE CHILDREN

by Jon Wesick


After a dinner at Chuck E Cheese the Transportation Security Agency and Right to Privacy sat the American Public on the couch.

“You know we’ll always love you no matter what happens. Well,” TSA swallowed, “we’ve been going through some hard times lately and think it would be best if your mother moved out. It has nothing to do with you. She just needs a little space right now.”

“What your father’s trying to say is that he no longer finds me attractive.”

“Please, we promised not to discuss this here.”

“Oh now you want your privacy, Mister Let’s Get a Backscatter X-ray to Spice Things Up in the Bedroom! If it was supposed to be so good for our marriage, how come you’re putting them in every airport in the country? Huh?”

“I’m doing it for you. When you’re sitting at home eating goat-cheese bonbons, I’m busting my ass trying to keep you safe. Oh, I’ve seen it all: explosive g strings, sarin-laced suppositories, tampons that can fire .22 caliber bullets.” TSA fondled the images on his hard drive. “Flat-chested Victoria’s Secret models wearing Semtex falsies, even eunuch jihadists with artificial C-4 testicles.”

“Margaret said you groped her and Stan in the airport security line and called it an ‘enhanced pat down.’ Really? Men too? You never told me you swung that way.”

While the Right to Privacy packed what remained of her dignity, the American Public belched stomach acid that tasted of half-digested, bacon-jalapeño pizza. Despite the vague promises of a trip to Disney World during the holidays, he wondered if he’d ever see the Right to Privacy again.


Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over two hundred poems in journals such as the The New Verse News, New Orphic Review, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. He has also published forty short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest.
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