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FEAR

Fear is not only in the hearts

of soldiers, civilians under bombardment,

children caught in crack wars,

it grips the chests of suburbanites

wondering if they will lose their jobs, their houses;

it gnaws at the stomachs of teachers who, holding

a frightened child, fear charges

of sexual misconduct, humiliated

even if found innocent.

Of course,

they dress in confidence

return home to where brochures promised

idyllic estates on quarter acre plots,

gardens to make them feel like farmers

in look-alike houses

on streets of contrived curves, spending

the next thirty years

paying the mortgage. Still

they got more house for the money

than in better parts of town,

had a bit of green, on which to raise

children and tomatoes,

hold a barbque, have a glass of wine

by a winter fire. Not bad for kids

from Brooklyn whose grandparents

starved in Riga and Bialastock,

Sicily and County Cork .

Sunday night their fear returns--

this world will vanish

if the boss decides,

a better bottom line

means cutting them.