You don’t want to head to Florida
with a Chewbacca crotch,
nor for Congress to pass
a tax cut for the rich.
Terrifying thoughts: tufts
weaseling out the edges
of your bathing suit, billionaires
with blond wives posing
behind placards of dollar bills.
There is need, and there is
need. You go see Rosa
from Brazil, whose art
involves nudity and pain,
who is unfazed by your
spread-legged shame,
who stares at your privates
like they’re a mission.
You suck in your breath
as she slathers the searing wax
on your nether regions,
the same day the Senate scrawls
numbers in the margins—
more zeroes than you can comprehend.
There is debt, and there is debt,
and you will not scream
as she coaches: breathe, breathe—
your hair yanked by the root,
follicles bleeding.
The rich, whose wardrobes cost more
than most families’ net worth,
say trickle and down—throw crumbs
to the plebes from the decks of their yachts.
The bald, nubile stinging pink will heal.
The poor will continue to be poorer.
from Body Braille by Beth Gylys (Iris Press, 2020).
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