The Rent Collectors

she is at least 63 years old.
it is suspicious that
she still has
red hair.
florid marks of some
kind speckle her face,
enough to notice.
many people have probably
assumed or hoped they were
the result of some creeping disease
of a spiritual, moral origin.
her wide-opened,
powerful, business-like eyes
greet you with undeniable
southern and matronly cheer;
they are practically agog
with superficial southern cheer.
from behind the big silly glasses you would expect worn
by a woman
of her station
they gog at you
and expect a satisfying monetary exchange.
they oversee my district
of the Realty Trust,
a vast gang of cutthroats known to every land
throughout time and memory.

she tries to be nice
she is a Christian,
and, I Believe,
one of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
she has witnessed,
and every month religiously
she takes, my meager offering
of rent money,
and witnesses that
it is late without fail,
but within the bounds of christian charity
as well as
the terms of our contract,
and she takes it and is kind
and thinks quietly
of the times she nearly expelled
me for too-late-payment,
and of her patience and charity
beyond these two unpleasing events,
those two doughty smack-downs
i delivered to the Realty Trust's attempts to evict me.
they tried,
but were not equal to my sweet-tongued pleas,
and the promise of more bundled bills,
with interest.

but yes what power she possesses,
this glass-eyed woman
who twice abused my self-esteem
and peace of mind
by almost evicting me.
Twice i had to sweet-talk
the blotched and slack-faced buzzard
with sugary believable
lies that make the skin crawl
and the body shudder,
but we are talking about roofs over heads here,
and Jehovah's witnesses,
and the sordid fact that
i paid and
will continue to pay,
with my fealty
to the land-owners
and my guilt
for lying rather shamelessly to
a quite gentle woman.