She Says

•

She says President Clinton should be impeached,
having sex in the Oval Office,

I say Clinton’s cheating on his wife was bad,
but Reagan betrayed the whole country
with the Iran-contra scandal,
if anyone should be impeached

he should have been,

besides, the whole impeachment thing
is a smokescreen
for Republicans rolling back
the gains of working people,

but already I can tell
she doesn’t hear me,
I can tell
she doesn’t see

the connection between one thing
and another,
the past
and the present,

the rich and their war against the poor
and working people in this country,
a whole big-business—
orchestrated frenzy.

She just keeps repeating
what Clinton did was wrong,
wrong, wrong, wrong,
having sex in the White House,

besides, “big government
should balance its books
like the Coppola family
does“

and end those blank checks
for welfare programs,

echoing George Will
on FOX News
the other night,

she, who maybe works
as a cashier at a Wallmart,

who has everything in common
with the people she works beside

and not that pundit
for the plutocracy,

me, I don’t see
what she gets out of it,

it would be funny
if it were not so devastating,

it would be sad
if it did not
make me
want to scream

about what is happening
to this country,

budget cuts for the crumbling schools,
billions for the Pentagon,

the rich growing richer
the poor growing poorer,

kids put in jail
for jumping the subway turnstile

while the real criminals

—the Duponts,
the Rockefellers,
the Morgans—

go free

— me,
I don’t see
what she
gets out of it—

working people need
our own party
to draw the connections
between things,

to unite and fight
for poor and working people,

and not Newt Gingrich
and George Will
and the banks
and corporations—

or maybe,
just maybe,

it is like
the connection
between cigarettes
and lung cancer:

there,
but just out of sight

in her dream