Tonight's Poet Corner: Privilege

Privilege
by Belinda Roddie

We were born to drink milk
until we lactated success, told
to eat bread and shit gold and sell
it at the market. We spent years

counting change and sorting our
savings, just to be sure we had two
coins to put on our eyes at the end
so we could ride a boat to
the beginning of our second existence.

The old men wanted us to invent
new legs for them so they could walk
again, sew new silver tongues into
their mouths so they could talk again,
stuff them into tweed suits and cart

them around the city so they could spew
their gospel for every one of their
disheveled disciples to hear. Those who
were asked to listen shook their cans
harder, so you could hear the loud metal
chorus of monetary disdain.

We jumped into our minivans and
wheeled our wishes to coffee shops,
scoffing at those who acted like
they were loftier than we were, but
we still dipped our noses in honey

to mask the odor of desperation
whenever a black toothed stranger
wearing a cardboard badge of honor
asked for a final chance at life.
Not everyone can escape swimming
across the river Styx, and God knows
Charon pities no one enough to offer
a free shuttle to the other side. We

suckled our mothers' nipples until
they were dry, not daring to imagine
others nestling into the desert curves
of their dying protectors' arid wombs.
We were given happiness by the bottle

to guzzle like unnecessary medicine, then
asked to pretend that we couldn't help
that there weren't enough drops to go around.
That there weren't enough slivers of silver
to settle sleepless lids with, to ensure
a steadier trip across the raging cauldron,
streaming to the world below.