The Barbara Bush Blues

(reprinted from The Star Tribune, Sunday, September 25, 2005. Page AA6)

By Rohan Preston, Star Tribune Staff Writer

"So many of the [displaced] people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this [chuckle], this is working very well for them." -Barbara Bush, Houston, September 2005

Poor people everywhere:
hope for disaster, displacement, flood,
pray for mudslides, earthquakes, wildfires -
for that's when the going really gets good!

Pray to be flushed out of your home -
to watch it float away to rot:
pray to end up in the Astrodome
on a little Red Cross cot.

Away from the 'hood, you get nutritious food
and free dental care;
you get coupons to hoity-toity salons
that can scrub the goo from your hair.

You get clean clothes, deodorant soap
and warm water to wash;
you get all this and most every wish -
plus a tidy bit of cash.

True, you may lose some of your little bums
and your minimum-wage job,
but these are just blips: after the apocalypse
you live high on the hog.

So, clasp your hands and pray to join the thousands
living large and scot-free!
They've got such good gravy, forget First Lady -
I wanna be an evacuee.

Rohan Preston is at rpreston@startribune.com