Classic Poem

If you're an American, you're naturally
curious as to what goes on in a Communist,
so you go to a cabbie in Rubezhnoye
who still knows how to be on the level:
" It's another purge. Some guys
have been making a bundle. "

This is reassuring, but the motherly
shopper laughs:
" The new commissar
will tighten the screws for a while,
then things will get back to normal "

This too is reassuring,
fifty years
after the Revolution,
and perfectly American.