Adrienne Rich and Earl Scruggs, please return to the building

and the rain continued to fall

March was waterlogged and weary

I struggled,

to make sense of life in an America

that was getting worse

instead of better

Has it really come to this

I want to know

I want Adrienne Rich back with her pen

and Earl Scruggs with his banjo

i ought to let them rest in peace

but Adrienne Rich is needed to fill in for Rush Limbaugh

because it seems middle America is in need of a few Good Poems

and Earl Scruggs ought to bring his Banjo over to Congress

and stop up the mouths of those menfolk

(who want to legislate my birth control)

with pickin so artful it reminds them they are human

and they danced once

and wouldn’t it be nice

if we could all break open a little, together

and maybe then Trayvon could come back too

and ever so briefly

the words would stop

and we would just feel

the space

between

us