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Momma she was fevered
She was jaundiced
We were worried
So we rushed her to the doctor
Into surgery they hurried
They timed her pulse
She signed their forms
Took anesthesia
When they cut into her belly
They found America
Her plains were dead and pallid
Bile was spilling in her rivers
There were tumors in her mountains
DDT all in her liver
Her lungs they heaved foul gases
Blood seeped into her sewers
The nurse says “She’s got insurance.”
The doc says “Well I’m her cure.”
For eleven hours they cut and stitched
Then marched out, oh so grand,
The doc said, “We’ve done all modern science can do
Now she’s in Jesus’s hands.”
And for purposes of morale
No foods shall be forsaken
So they fed Ma saccharine coffee
And sodium-nitrated bacon
Two more years of miracle cures
Finally healed Ma to her end
‘Cause she lived right up until she died
They said “My how brave she’s been.”
The undertaker laid her out
In a coffin frilled so gayly
Decked out in a dress of double-knit
Looking like an Avon Lady
Despite the best cosmetics
America looked quite dead
So they put her old, scratched spectacles
And a wig upon her head
And just to show the watching world
That death could never win
Upon her little shriveled wrist
They strapped a digital Elgin
That watch it pulsed all through the night
‘til the funeral the next day
It pulsed right through the hymns they sang
And the prayers they paused to say
It begged for mercy to my mind
As it flashed the rosary
Still we sent her six-feet under
With no spare batteries.
Bo McCarver
Copyright 1982
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