ALEX'S TEETH

Spiraling Abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

 “Trumpcare Will Be a Disaster for Opioid Epidemic” –Rolling Stone, June 28, 2017

Alex’s                                      baby

bottom                                     choppers

crept up like                            darts.

Duo of                                     early pearls

emerging                                 front row

finial twins,                             grinners,

grinders,                                  happy sprouts

held                                         in mouth like

innocence                                jiggled loose, lost,

jammed  beneath pillow.         Kid notes 

kissed up to tooth fairy          “Leave cash, please.

Lots.”  The                              mom

(me)                                        never said

“No”                                       or maybe

only rarely.                             Put five bucks under his

pillow, smiled                        quietly smoothed

quilt.    No sign of                  rotting then. Cavity free.

Really                                     straight

sans orthodontia.                    Teeth

to die for, eventually               under siege. Addiction is

ugly. I can’t watch them         vanquished,

vanishing into                         white powder,

wasting gray.                           Xed out by OxyContin

Rx. Then junk.                        Ya. I can’t watch 

you dissolve,                           zero each enamel bead into

zilch. Zot.

Susan Vespoli lives in Phoenix, AZ where the opioid epidemic is alive and well. Her work has been published in a variety of spots including Mom Egg Review, TheNewVerse.News, Write Bloody, and dancing girl press.

MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, EVEN IF IT KILLS US

by George Salamon

“Young Americans are dying from despair. After the Great Recession, people aged between 25 and 44 started to overdose on opioids at an alarming pace. Overall, death rates for this age group rose an astounding 8% between 2010 and 2015.” —Jessika Bohon,  “Deaths of despair are rising in America. They are claiming lives all around me,” The Guardian, June 22, 2017. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images via The Guardian.

Flavius Josephus chronicled
The suicide of 960 Jews in 73 CE
Besieged by a Roman legion in Masada.
It may be history, it may be legend.
What young Americans are doing today
Is the real thing.
It is making America ugly and mean
And a mockery of the American Dream.

George Salamon has been watching the crumbling of the American Dream in and from St. Louis, MO.