lenten journal: dear aig

    2
    1330

    I know what it’s like to be
    caught up in your own world —
    I go to work in a windowless
    kitchen and stay there all day
    (there’s a lot to do)
    my world quickly becomes
    about my world unless
    someone bursts in or I break out

    is that what happened to you?

    is that how you decided you
    deserved the bonuses even
    though your company was broke
    and you needed money from
    the rest of us just to have
    a company? did you convince
    yourself that being rich and
    being smart were the same thing?

    I have an idea:

    come spend the day in my world.
    watch Tony, the dishwasher
    who speaks very little English
    and understands only the words
    that give him work to do
    and he smiles the whole shift
    and gets the occasional bonus
    of food to take home.

    but you won’t come.

    they say you’re too big to fail.
    I dropped a whole pan of potatoes
    au gratin — twenty four servings
    that took two hours to make —
    ten minutes before service began;
    and so we did without them
    because I, big as I am, failed.
    and that was just today

    that was just today.

    being not rich and smart are
    not necessarily the same thing,
    so I won’t claim to understand
    credit default swaps, but I do
    understand this: you may be
    too big to fail but your not
    too big to be wrong, or deceitful.
    Come clean. Quit stealing.

    (That’s what it is.)

    you’re not too big
    to be forgiven.

    Peace,
    Milton

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