Meredith Minister, 10/21/2013

Current Occupation: Teacher
Former Occupation: Student
Contact Information: Meredith Minister grew up on a dairy farm in Western Kentucky and recently returned to the area when she was hired as the Assistant Professor of Religion at Kentucky Wesleyan College. She received graduate degrees in Theology and Religious Studies from Boston University and Southern Methodist University.

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Trickle-Down Economics

I would welcome hands caked with dirt
And mud as alternative
To manicured typing fingers
But the hands before my eyes now

Are not dirt covered. They smell of
Money – capital exchanges –
Labor equals pay equals purchase of
A good made by someone else’s

Labor. Incessant flow but no trickle
Down. My hands take from hands below
Me while the hands above mine take
More from me. Accumulation

Means I have more to give. Pundits
Say my kind are dying. Middle
Disappearing like I wish my
Middle would disappear. I wish

For hands free from the smell of old
Bills but lather from France’s most
Luxuriant soap cannot clean
My blood-stained hands.