based on a poem by Sylvia Plath

Capitalism surfs around my house.
Damn Capitalism, he looks so nice!
The blue and red jewels of his flags smoke
In the windows, the bodies
Are filling with teeth.

What is so real as the cry of an American?
An Arab’s cry may be wilder
But it has no english.
Corn can cure everything, so Capitalism says,
Corn is a necessary ingredient,
Its syrups a little medicine.
O capitalism, capitalism
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Chinese tea, desperate white patient,
May be burned any minute, anesthetizing. 

And here you come, purchasing coffee
Wreathed in paper.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two animals, two remotes.

R/B Mertz is a poet and teacher living in East Liberty.  She publishes poems at lifeandpoems.tumblr.com.