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Letter to an American Taxpayer

Dear voter, election day is approaching:
Do you know where your candidate is?

Have you analyzed the oratory,
Discerned the sound bite from the spirit

And the Fair from the Foul?

This is a letter
From an Unknown Citizen
Who never threatened your rights,

Only your indifference.

My persuasive arts
And patience are spent.
I too am tired of liberty-
Of righting wrongs and wronging

The Right.

Give back your amendments,
Your illusive constitution

To Voltaire or Locke or Jefferson
Rotting in the ill earth.

Take back your sulfurous agents
And apathetic instincts
Of ruin. Deny

Thy forefather and refuse
Thy affiliated name.

Recline away
While ancient forests fall

And acid rains down
Upon your children's graves.

They will reimburse
The sins of the fathers

With tainted tears.
Dear absentee, this is a letter

From your descendants:

Deliver us from thy filth.

-Christine Keiner

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