Poetry
11.2 / FALL / WINTER 2016

AMERICA IN TWO PARAGRAPHS OR LESS

Capitalism

 

Last night, for the second time and to the same person, I got married. At work. This was for simplicity purposes. Later I would regret this. There was some flirtation on my part as well as some guilt. But I was married and I felt somehow immune. I floated beautiful, charming, effervescent as a beach ball on the backs of attendants and friends. Alarmed by the sheer amount of popcorn,incensed at the unfinished filing abandoned by those in attendance (my co-workers), I began sweeping, yelling, bagging. My dress clung in all the right places. Those remaining applauded my commitment. Jerry, I shouted. Can you believe all this work they left?  And me just married. The nerve. But I adored Jerry. Jerry got me. Jerry with his sweeper brush and plastic gloves, I hugged him, my voice hoarse from celebration and gratitude and also the air conditioning. Arriving home, I was once again irritated with my co-workers. I’m not saying I’m the perfect employee. Or the perfect wife. But I try to leave a clean workspace. As I returned home on my wedding night a stranger approached me. It’s occurred to me more than once how you really can’t write about rape. Not again.

 

*****

 

 

 

Democracy

 

It helps to think about water heating gradually. Like a frog boiling her lemonade here I sit, feeling quite fine. It’s not bad to enjoy money, but then I might not completely feel that way. I am attracted to whatever is the best thing, and once I know what that is, I can’t get away from it.

 

Andrea Boerem is a Suffering Writer. She will begin a graduate degree in Suffering as an MFA candidate at NYU in the fall of 2016. She is working to complete her first novel in addition to maintaining a daily practice of Suffering and is probably Suffering a little bit right now.

 


11.2 / FALL / WINTER 2016

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