~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Matt Zambito

Poem at the Root of Necessary Evil

I used my first temp-job paycheck (for mis-

serving customers at Visa) to pay down 

my Discover debt. That same Friday, 

I charged my bar tab to a different credit card. 

After my stumbling home, 24/7-news 

explained interest rates may be rising 

slightly but never specified what “rising” 

meant to anyone not a bank boss, each 

obsessed with collecting dollar signs 

the way my mind acquires 

lyrics to rock songs and plots 

to comedies, yes, each boss obsessed 

with usury the way most folks love flavory.

Tomorrow’s headlines had 

already happened by then, and if 

the aristocrats employed 

as money changers have anything 

to do with the next morning’s reportage 

(and they have everything 

to do with the next morning’s reportage), then 

for the right return on investment, 

they’d bring all of history to a griefful end.

Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances. New poems are forthcoming in Tampa Review, Slipstream, Hiram Poetry Review, Freshwater Literary Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Niagara Falls, he has lived in Ohio, Idaho, Washington, and New York, where he now resides with his rescue dog, Sadie.