What a Country
Appliances once lasted over forty years.
Cars lasted twenty-five before becoming antiques.
Now we get ten years, if we’re lucky.
A lousy ten years
and inflation breathing down your neck.
Who has enough money
to live to one hundred?
We are the poor people.
Not poor because we own nothing.
Poor because everything we own
has an expiration date.
The refrigerator dies.
The stove dies.
The oil burner dies.
The air conditioner dies.
And every time something dies,
a little more of us
goes with it.
Because letting go
is expensive. And once you let go,
you may never get it back.
So what do you do?
Borrow.
Put interest on top of interest.
Sign your name
to money you already know
you cannot repay.
What if you’re ninety?
What if Social Security is all you have?
A benefit, they call it.
As if someone gave you a gift.
As if you didn’t spend
your whole life paying for it.
Maybe insurance covers you.
Maybe your children rescue you.
But your children are already rescuing their children.
Everyone is carrying someone.
Everyone is one broken appliance away from the edge.
And then one morning you wake up
and understand the arithmetic:
you have become another expense.
Your family loves you.
But love
does not pay the bill.
So the trip next winter
is postponed.
Again.
The little pleasure
you promised yourself
after a lifetime of work
is pushed further away.
Until there is no winter left.
No trip.
No next time.
Just the refrigerator humming
in the kitchen—
until it doesn’t.
What a country.
A country where
even the things meant to last
have learned how to die early.
And where, if you live long enough,
you become the thing everyone is afraid
they can no longer afford to keep.
