To write is to argue without evidence that beauty
pervades: the rainforest and the killing field,
sunsets and floods of acid rain on I-95.

Every morning I brush my teeth, wash my hair,
check my clothes in the mirror before work.
Is it vain or naïve to read poetry these days?

I’ve travelled millennia across lands of brute
illiteracy and great odds to arrive here, on a
couch in the suburbs of a fragile Democracy:

Isn’t it nice to rest a while, put our feet up, drink
of the marvels of a global economy?— My coffee
is from Perú, my coffeemaker made in China!

The TV blares, though I’m not watching; every
so often I hear a commercial for car insurance.
I forgot to turn off the upstairs-light; my empty bed

is bathed in unobserved miracles. Passing comets must
marvel that so much abundance can go to waste.
In 2019 America, it is naïve to be an idealist,

and yet we’ve built a union worth perfecting.
On Monday mornings, I cringe at myself in the mirror,
then hurry along I-95…

so much work to do today.