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Social Security
by
Anita S. Pulier


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You pay in all your working life
till the day you comb your thinning hair
and head into the Claims Dept
birth certificate in hand
to retrieve your money, please.
 
They speak in loud voices
as if you are demented
they do not know how hard you worked
how weary you feel or understand
the labyrinth which brought you
face to face with this uncivil servant.
 
He asks if you have
committed heinous crimes
against your country,
you defend yourself
politely, as the only crime
you can recall is aging.
 
He tells you in a droning monotone
that you will get less money because you have
come too early, or arrived too late,
and very soon, when they run out
you will get nothing.
 
On the bus ride home,
you notice the strong putrid
smell of bureaucracy
being blown away
by gusts of exhaust you
no longer have to breathe
on someone else's schedule.
 
© by Anita S. Pulier.
Used with the author's permission.
 

Anita S. Pulier is a retired attorney who, many years ago, traded legal writing for poetry. She and her husband, Myron, pursue a bi-coastal life between New York City and Los Angeles, where they are daily hikers in the NYC parks and the Santa Monica mountains. Anita has been very involved in the Southern California poetry community and, recently, even Myron (a retired psychiatrist) has taken up poetry! Anita’s poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals and her work is included in nine print anthologies. The author of multiple collections, her most recent is Paradise Reexamined. Learn more about Anita at http://psymeet.com/anitaspulier/main/index.php.

                        

 

 

 


Post New Comment:
Glen Sorestad:
A great tongue-in-cheek poem.
Posted 08/14/2012 11:18 AM


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