The men move like morgue

attendants

while the women flirt and bake pies

for the country fair.

The skeletons in their

closets dance a

jig to

mediocrity.

War veterans sons come home in pieces

or sort of

alive in body

but dead in the head.

What more can they give

than what they've already given up?

Crimes of betrayal and government

blackmail

weave through the crumbling fabric of

American life.

The government stopped being honorable when

they started butchering Indians

and stealing their land.

Now the crops from the land will not pay the mortgages

of decent people who

never butchered anything

except food to eat or sell.