Billy Malanga
Deliberate Indifference
You know them, the ones
that want an audience,
the ones that want to speak
at meetings, where they
can appear amazing.
They need it to breathe.
They laugh while editing
your memo. I hear them above
the babble, but they’re
not down there, in there, they
are indifferent.
They are sanitary, sterile, and
uncommitted.
If you nod with them
they praise you, they
promote you, they want
everything lively,
but if you deny them
they’ll take your money,
sling you down under
the table where ants and spiders
kill for crumbs and drain you
like hay.
Billy Malanga’s recent poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Creativity Webzine, The Write Launch, Picaroon Poetry, and other journals. Billy is a first generation college graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and the grandson of Italian immigrants. He currently lives in Urbana, Illinois and is relocating to Auburn, Alabama in August 2017.
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