[Newspoetry] Medea's Cloak Returned

[Michael Feltes]

There are moments when I awaken
that I feel like my bed clothes are on fire

There's suffering woven into the fabric:
the pain of mothers walking beside their young daughters into the gaping
maw of the sweatshop
(Take Your Child To Work Day taken to a grotesque power)
the tremendous exhaustion for the laborer at the end of a 16 hour day
exhaustion that grows a little bit each day, for there are no days off
no rest for the weary
and the desperation, the tremendous desperation that must be theirs
as they try to stretch 18 cents an hour into the necessities of life
I'm sure that if they had an accountant, he would be able to play
magic with the numbers, make them into a sustainable budget
Sort of a postmodern Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
But alas, no help is forthcoming

And so when I first awaken
and am most open
least cluttered
the sheets burn when they touch my skin
my sympathy inflames the suffering woven into the 230-count 100% cotton
sheets

But as I get more and more distracted by my life
that consciousness goes away

-- 
--

Michael Feltes
mfeltes at gmx.net

The question is asked - can we afford it [Labour's socialistic 
reforms]?  Supposing the answer is 'No,' what does that mean?  It 
really means that the sum total of the goods produced and the 
services rendered by the people of this country is not sufficient to 
provide for all our people at all times, in sickness, in health, in 
youth and in age, [a] very modest standard of life... I cannot 
believe that our national productivity is so slow, that our 
willingness to work is so feeble or that we can submit to the world 
that the masses of our people must be condemned to penury.

- Clement Attlee, 1946

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