A PRIVILEGE

"And if I hear one more teenager
stand up in church and say,
'These people had so little,
and now I'm so thankful

"'I think I'm going to puke
the eyes of exploited workers
on an atlas
I'm so thankful now for all I have.'

"Society will be tired
of being nice someday.
People will forget
what people look like."

He took his teenagers
to a local homeless shelter
and told the director:
"I prefer clean toilets.

"If you want my teenagers
to clean toilets,
then they will clean toilets.
An accessible clean toilet is a privilege.

"The toilet should be dry and clean
and accessible by road from everywhere
and it should provide storage for the normally
difficult-to-store seasonal worker.

"Toilet security is an emergency
matter in that apocalyptic cavern,
where more and more mouths open up
and all the lost align their eyes and ears.

"Even if we do all become like animals
and our future is unearthed from ancient graves,
the height of the seat and the amount of turning
space within the stall still matter,

"just like food continues to be
taxable, even if there will be no evil,
because the more we advance, the more
letters we write." Experts all over the world

are thought to have become extinct,
so we will never know if honest, moral people
are truly conscious, or if it's just nerves:
either way, clean toilets change our hearts,

the heart belongs to u
and it fills with special warmth
better than a bed of roses
to invite the hard work into the toilet.

--Stan Apps