Poems and Texts

“Charitable Trust” by Jacqueline Waters

Charitable Trust

Give
Giving kills time
Pause giving
Like you’re too important for it
Like if this
Is now a re-negotiation
Then you’d prefer to suture up
Last year’s money bags
And make everyone walk to the well

Or share
Sharing strengthens the teeth
Hunters are quick to say
Their relationship with their dogs
Is never mere ownership
Instead the hounds
Become part of the family
“We lowered him down with a golden chain
And every link we called his name”
Goes the song
About Old Blue
That famous old
Dead dog

Jacqueline Waters

Jacqueline Waters is the author of Commodore and One Sleeps the Other Doesn’t, both from Ugly Duckling Presse. Her work has appeared recently in Chicago Review, Dreamboat, Fanzine, Harper’s, Little Star and The American Reader.

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