Open Memo To The Congressional Appropriations…

To Whom It Does Concern:

Could we please have just one space flight,

one nine-million dollar adventure into the great breath,

so that we could divide the loaves and fishes

and put 900 more people to work for a year.

Or could we please have one nuclear missile,

so we can difuse it, sell the used parts

for one-point-ten billion worth of more than just

rice krispies breakfast-lunch-dinners.

What if we could exchange an M-1 rifle for a solar reflector

so that our building could have heat all the time,

not wait for avaricious gun-toting landlords

to remember to call the oil company tomorrow

for the child next door with pneumonia today.

We would even accept a leftover bomber,

or one two-million dollar high tech space suit,

however patronizing it may seem,

or a decommissioned aircraft carrier to relieve tight housing

problems.

Its not much, is it?

When you add it up, pull together the sum total

of the four billion dollars-a-day catastrophy fantasy,

the whole is worse than its parts.

So to continue our list,

could you please refund on our next tax return

the difference between the limousines you drive,

and the tokens we do not have

to build our nation strong.

Signed,

The People of the Rest of the World

Copyright Credit: Sandra Maria Esteves, "Open Memo To The Congressional Appropriations Committee And The Military Department Of Defense" from Bluestown Mockingbird. Copyright © 1990 by Sandra Maria Esteves. Reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.