Poetry Report: Hospital Bill Breakfast

---

“The glue on the stamp
tastes like failure”

It's nice when you don't have to choose between paying a hospital bill and eating breakfast.

 + + +

Hospital Bill Breakfast


I write $5000
onto the amount line of
a thin piece of paper.

This is the sum total
of my life.

I slip the sum total
into a thinner envelope.

The glue on the stamp
tastes like failure.

I walk to the frozen
mailbox and push the envelope
in like a cadaver.

Back inside, it's breakfast time.
I set a little butter
to sizzle in the pan
and drop the hospital bill in,
watching the butter
soak through its black ciphers.

At the table,
a forkful of greasy pulp
in my mouth,
the radio man
tells me he
wants to take away
my one chance
at affordable health care.

He tells me
he doesn't want to leave
a bad taste in my mouth.

+ + +