Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Health Care Bill

With apologies to Wallace Stevens.

I.

Among fifty failing states,

The only moving thing

Was the cost of the health care bill.

II.

The CBO was of three minds,

Like a hopper

In which there are three health care bills.

III.

A health care bill swirled in the cloakrooms.

It was but a small part of the Big Lie.

IV.

A Reid and a Pelosi

Are one.

A Reid and a Pelosi and a health care bill

Are one.

V.

I do not know which to prefer,

The folly of the deceptions

Or the folly of the desperations,

The health care bill passing

Or just after.

VI.

Snowmounds filled the Capitol steps

With muddy puddles.

The shadow of the health care bill

Passed them, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An unfathomable doom.

VII.

Oh wise men of Congress,

Why do you dream of wonder cures?

Do you not see that the health care bill

Stoops beneath the feet

Of the system around you?

VIII.

I know high premiums

And frightful, inescapable long lines;

But I know, too,

That the health care bill is involved

In what I know.

IX.

When the health care bill moved out of sight,

It marked the start

Of one of many scandals.

X.

At the sound of health care bills

Read into the deep night,

Even the frauds of K Street

Would cry out sharply.

XI.

He flew over Connecticut

In a white bird.

Once a fear pierced him

In that he mistook

The shadow of his presidency

For health care bills.

XII.

Obama is speaking.

The health care bill must be losing.

XIII.

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The health care bill sat

In the Speaker's chair.