30/30: Golden Shovel #8

The lottery ticket is off-white with a

row of smudged numbers. It was dirty

when I picked it up from the street, a little

tear on one edge. I guess it didn’t have the secret

numbers, the reward of a top prize, no corporate

profits-type numbers. No one pays tax

on a win of zero. The rates

of winning this jackpot are very low and

still, wouldn’t I spend money I can’t spare in the

hope it would be a huge investment? It’s very

low odds. Still, I wish I were rich.

 

The news analysis here is about how corporate taxes rates have fallen dramatically since 1950, yet the winners have not been the American economy as a whole, which was the justification for the cuts, but only the top 0.01%.

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.