Chain Letter
       

Send me a modest money & copy
this very verse off ten
times anew for the unlisted
likeminded you might know of & go
ahead, add to it one of your own.
Send all the verses off,
& me the money the ten times.

If you positively recognize
this in advance as one of those tests
you flunk, then copy ten from the lists
of the tests you flunk, add this & send
each off with its modest money
to me care of a institutional
depravity of your choice.

Now you toss helplessly
among contending tens
of your favorites! each one hasn't heard
all these years the least peep
out of you even though you do utter
one many waking moments— time
of day you might've but didn't die,

time of day you brim with gratitude,
flush again for what sweet
houseroom the world makes. Then send
me what time you took to read this
verse this far, if you did; also the blush
making the face in the morning, it
doesn't have to be yours.

Copyright © 2010 Martha Zweig All rights reserved
from Monkey Lightning
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission