THE NUMBERS
Creative Strategy #3: Ask for help.
The wasted cityscape below
has more abandoned homes
than any budget
could afford to tear down
So they rest there
the way we all do eventually
empty of everything
but memories
The calamity has trickled 12 stories up
to the high-rise copper tower
with all the empty offices
Gleaming smiles with missing teeth
The lawyer has no admin
just an outer room where
we set our coats on chairs
It looks like people have melted
leaving only their outerwear
Behind a sparse desk he sits
& explains the concept of bankruptcy
It is important that we grasp
the numbers
the difference between
Chapter 7 & Chapter 13
I don’t understand
He explains again
I still don’t understand
& he gets mad
You’re not listening he snaps
I give him 3 pieces of paper
my expenses
my assets
my debts
You’re missing a piece of paper he says
Your income
I have no income I say
He smiles & says
O yes you do
I haven’t had a job in 13 months
You have a pension & unemployment?
Yes
It takes half my pension
to cover my family’s healthcare
Because I have a pension
they cut my benefits in half
Out of that they garnish
my ex’s spousal support
If I do any work
they cut my benefits altogether
I am broke
in debt
underwater
& about to lose our home
You call that income?
Outside the high window
Detroit is bone cold
so we sit in his small office
as if we were trapped
To him this is entirely routine
You had a severance? he asks
Yes & I tell him the figure
And where did That go?
It was the thing he did with his mouth
after he asked that question
That was when I decided
to fire him
—Patrick O’Leary
—from the forthcoming poetry collection, OBVIOUSLY I LOVE YOU