AGENDA

by Elizabeth Gordon McKim

We’re supposed to clear you

We’re supposed to donate you

We’re supposed to if need be

Trash you hunt you look you up

And down hurt you

We’re supposed to thank you

For your service we’re supposed

To sing you we’re supposed to

Sing you a thank you song

We’re supposed to take you to Sal’s

We’re supposed to send you back

To the killing fields, to your grandmother

Who keeps saying your name

To your mama who cannot stop crying

To your father who cannot keep warm

Who tries to put his head into

His hands but his hands

Are tied his mind is occupied

By foreigners and family and exile

In a weird war voice speaking

Words he doesn’t

Get or forget

* * * * *

Elizabeth Gordon McKim's next book of poetry: LOVERS in the FREE FALL coming out in April 2020 with Leapfrog Press. She is Jazz Poet of Lynn Massachusetts and poet laureate of European Graduate School in Saas Fee Switzerland. She loves the dimensions of poetry found in visual verbal musical invention/interruptions/eruptions.