Angel picture

Angel

Revolutionary Workers Party

It’s not what she expected
This party, picking potatoes
The buckling drudgery
The ceaseless meetings
Run by misguided pundits
She expected intelligent discourse
Cultural exchanges
High spirits and camaraderie
More rage against the system.
Instead she realizes
Too late, too late
That the rage and the system
The old and the new
All the parties
Are just alike.

The New World

Long hours, low light
The one-bedroom cold-water walk-up
In the lower east side
They work around the kitchen table
Nimble fingers assemble fake flowers
Hunched backs, strained eyes
To get the flowers just right
None speak English but the oldest boy
Ten years old, assembling flowers
It is not what he bargained for
It is not what his father expected
Of the new world.