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Monday, August 20, 2012

THE SUMMER AFTER HIS SOPHOMORE YEAR

by William Aarnes

Source: Dr. Goodword's Office

Their son comes home from college
thinking his parents have piddled
their promise away teaching public school.

He brags how he’ll profit from the A
he’s earned on a paper that maintains
the Constitution is near defunct.

He’s majoring in Poli Sci,
he tells his hometown buddies,
so next spring he can intern
for a high-ranking Representative
who’ll recognize his worth.

He tells his parents that his prayer
is by thirty to win a House seat
as a step toward serving
on multiple corporate boards.
Yes, he’ll make billions.

Before he’s forty, he tells them,
he means to be an oligarch.
And when he visits the house
he’ll build for them wherever they want,
he’ll fly in with his bodyguards
on one of his eight-passenger jets.

He’ll have occasion, he reassures them,
for giving the needy their due.


William Aarnes lives and teaches in South Carolina.
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