A President's Epiphany

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So much cold cement,
such hard surface, hard lines
between bare-soled feet and bountiful earth,
between high risers and low sinkers.

Dirt is the great unwashed odor buried
under manholes, sidewalks, foundations,
beneath thick, plastic grass
and Italian leather soles.

Weeds are terrorists,
are strafed down as if they were
a flaw in the grand design.

Now that I have outlived my office,
I can afford guilt,
but my fortune cannot pay back
those begging hands
I viewed as dirtier than mine.

Hours boiling in my Jacuzzi,
I still find dirt under my fingernails,
but still sweat to touch the ground
I sprouted from.

Even dust, the ghost of everything,
has its history cleaned up
by wipe and swipe, by neocon artists
spreading their lusty body oils
across the visible world.

Now I have time
to hear the concrete cracking,
can feel the dirt we buried churning.
Oil boils beneath the towers,
its squeezed temper hotter by the hour.