"Paradise is Browning"

Tommy Thompson,
Governor of Wisconsin,
Now Secretary of Health and Human Services,
Under George W. Bush,
Stands stiff and looks caustically at the camera...

Tommy Thompson,
Governor of Wisconsin,
Now Secretary of Health and Human Services,
Under George W. Bush,
Stands stiff and looks caustically at the camera,
Like a missionary in a desert of liberal thinking,
Proclaiming proudly of his welfare success,
Wisconsin Works.
As if God had given the mission himself, he smiles,
Saying to the lonely people of his land,
“The Garden of Eden has been reborn in Wisconsin.�
He pulls out charts and the facts take center stage.

Maria collapses into her living room couch,
Exhausted from checking on her three-year-old daughter
Whose ear infection can’t heal without treatment,
And turns on the TV.
Over the tired screams of her precious baby,
Over the increasing noise of neighbors, fighting
About pasta or vacuuming or sex or whatever,
All distracting,
Sitting there reading over past bills
And stretching that workfare farther than it will go
(Credit is the windfall of indentured debtors),
She listens to her governor’s declaration and
Wonders, “Where?�
This system is said to work.
It takes that Welfare Mama
And her six (or ten) kids
And her ghetto-trashy room
In the drug-plagued Projects
Gives her an opportunity to succeed.

But Tommy Thompson has never met this woman,
Neither have the people of Wisconsin,
Neither has America, because she doesn’t exist.
This system doesn’t work.
It fails the people.
What was once guaranteed is now fought for.
It forces Eve, alone now that Adam has left
To look for better work
(and less responsibility),
To steal that one delicious apple
Hanging high above her sunken head,
Just to feed a starving, soon silent child.
This is Tommy’s system.
This is his plan:
Let America decay.

-David Mann