SWEET CHARITY

Dear Mr. Bates, please may I
apply to your foundation
for funds to build a hospital
in our country. You could visit
with a television crew
once the building was completed.
We might even name a ward
for you so you can come
in a helicopter and be photographed
speaking to mothers
nursing skeletal infants,
awaiting AIDS medication
and food. This one was raped
by militia after they had butchered
her son and husband
in the village square. Mr. Bates,
if you could not build a hospital,
perhaps a factory will do.
Our government is offering good rates
to foreign investors with a mind
to make our country great. Our people
are desperate for work
and money and food. Electronics
is the future, Mr. Bates, and our country
has the skills but not the means.
A six-figure sum could build a workshop
and a school. We would not ask
for much by way of wages.
I'm sure you'll find our terms
competitive. Think of all we could earn.

The ladies fan their sweat with jeweled hands
and sip Tom Collins. The gentleman kick back
with gin and slims, smoking finest Havanas.
They tip the waiters handsomely,
easing the pain of their savagery.

GOING HOME WITH

I'd pick them up in bars, target the suited boys

on gin and slim, fingering the white space

where the ring had been. I'd be drunk, need

to find a bed to kip in. I was hotter then, attracted

fat, married business types like a run on a bank.

The men would take me home. I'd be all

Mr. Passive in the cab, call them sir, let them spit

champagne in my mouth. I loved them

feeling me up like a wife. Some of them paid.

Some didn't. Others just talked.