Poem of the Week: Kim Jensen

And Even George W. is out of a Job

You know the economy's bad

when people are lined up around the block

to apply for the job

of the wicked witch.

They've been lined up all night

waiting for their chance to prove

it's nothing at all

to climb a broom

and cackle like a wall-street speculator

just before the crash

to whisk....into the starry suburban night

and fly fly fly...

.....................and all without benefits

.....................of body armor.

I saw them -- huddled masses

waiting for the chance to make

an impression

............on their one circut

........................on autopilot around the moonlit sky.

Even I took a stab

and found it's not so hard

to zoom out above the cul-de-sac of cape cods --

............a surprisingly predictable circle.

But just when I was ready to take the job

I had a vision

of some wind-blown

foreclosed home swirling in from Kansas

.......tumbling from the sky and landing forever on my face.

No.

It wasn't worth the price.

-Kim Jensen

Used by permission.

Kim Jensen's first novel about a turbulent love affair between a Palestinian exile and an American student, The Woman I Left Behind, was published in 2006 by Curbstone Press, and was a finalist for Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year. Her first book of poems, Bread Alone, was published in 2009, and her new collection of poems, The Only Thing that Matters is forthcoming from Syracuse University Press. Kim currently lives in Maryland where she serves on the editorial board of the Baltimore Review and teaches English at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Jensen was on the panel Women & War/Women & Peace: International Voices at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.

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