Let Them Eat Cake! By Gary Corseri

By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 28, 2011

Image by frankkeillor via Flickr

The people of Somalia are not like us.
Their skin is black and gray and parched by sun.
They carry their babies on bony hips,
Walking for miles for a little water.
Even their babies are resigned to death,
Hollow-eyed, fly-covered, without the strength
To cry, without the will to endure.

We, on the other hand, are full of “life!”
We eat pizza and watch television.
Water magically appears at our fingers.
Our skin is bathed in emollients.
Our babies are full-throated and fat.
Our bodies are soft, and shaped like gourds.
We drive everywhere in S.U.V.’s.
We vote for politicians who despise us.
We are proud of our democracy.

The people of Somalia vote with their feet.
They trudge the hot sands, looking for water.
The soles of their feet are hard as tires.
They know nothing of Global Warming,
Population over-shoot, Earth’s carrying capacity.
Their carrying capacity
Is a baby on each raw hip.

The poor among us are deliberately poor.
Anyone with gumption can make a million.
Our hard times will pass and we’ll get back to normal:
Proms and Christmases, first kisses,
Change we can believe in, reality TV.
We’ll die and we’ll kill for inalienable rights:
Happy Meals, water at our fingers;
Our right to be oblivious; our right to
Life, liberty and a perennial mirage.

Gary Corseri’s articles, poems, fiction, and dramas have appeared at hundreds of online and hard-copy venues worldwide, including Dandelion Salad, The Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Georgia Review, CounterPunch, The New York Times, The Village Voice and Redbook. He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum. He has published two novels (Holy Grail, Holy Grail and A Fine Excess), a literary anthology (Manifestations, edited), two collections of poems, and his dramas have been on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere. He can be reached at: gary_corseri@comcast.net or garyscorseri@gmail.com.