1040
As I sit sore-assed
amidst scattered receipts,
crumpled papers scrawled
with mistaken numbers,
a hand calculator
and a cup of peppermint tea,
the 1040 stares back
grinning
in its blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing face.
I have spent days juggling papers
to the patriotic rhythms
of the tax-book’s fluid verse,
tossing sums into the air,
fingers grasping futilely for cents in the dollar,
for money,
money wrested from these very fingertips
by bureaucrats and gas-bag politicians
avid for cash
avid for power
avid for my money.
I ponder.
I fume.
The 1040 sits there
grinning
in its blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing face.
I stare.
I fume.
I grin.
I shout “Eureka!”
and run smiling
to my bathtub for a half-hour soak
agog about the big lie
that causes us to fume and to hate
as the 1040s sit there
grinning
in their blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing faces.
That money I fumed over?
It was never really mine.
Sure, the company said it was,
but
I never saw it,
I never felt its green crackles
I never had it to spend on leather-bound tomes
filled with verses to the 1040,
or on devotional offerings for my company
that would never lie
or even make a teensy weensy mistake.
My tax dollars
never mine
given by my employer
purchase police
protect freedom
protect the American way of life
protect the 1040 sitting there
chortling at the lie
that is its essence,
grinning wildly
in its blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing face.
As I sit in the cooling water
my face reddens with anger
at days spent sifting antique receipts,
pondering the dusty verses of arcane mystics
(the loremasters of the riant I.R.S.)
pounding my calculator with tingling fingers
for a few-score pennies,
pounding the myth that the pennies had ever been mine
into my head with my own worn fingers—
myths that lead us to support corporate lobbyists
in their fairy-tale stiff-upper-lip tough-love
its-us-or-them utter cruelty,
as they turn the sick onto the streets,
lay off thousands of teachers and social workers,
transform foodstamps for the RIFfed into tax cuts for them,
starve us ’til we’ll scab on striking nuns
for a few crumbs
of holy wafers
blesséd by men in wealthy robing
who fired the nuns for thoughts of utter
blasphemy—
like loving the poor
or seeing that taxes don’t come from the pockets of workers
but from the corporations,
that taxes go from their private pockets
to their public pockets.
But both pockets bankroll
the hatred
and mystic palaver
that fills the airways
and feed the grin on the legend
that is the 1040
in its blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing face.
But as I storm from my soap-filled bathtub
and storm naked into the street shouting my anger,
I grin again,
recalling that freedom comes from just such anger,
from the aching hearts
and loving-hating minds
of workers enraged,
of workers scattering myths
with grins on our faces—
on our black-white-brown-yellow-and-red
creaséd-twisted-and-lined
good-for-nothing
full-of-hope
full-of-anger
creaséd-twisted-and-lined
faces
as we join the fired nuns
on a picket line of millions
to destroy the lying system
and the 1040 that embodies it
with its blue-white-over-lined
good-for-nothing face.