Does not the world—that fat lout—
stomp on their corns, hard?
Do they not starve for sweets
that, eaten, stab their cavities?
Let them aouga as you make
a legal left. Let them howl
as you drop the last on-sale
angelfood cake into your cart
just as they run up, slobbering.
Don’t resent their scowls
when you ask, all courtesy, to use
the lat machine they lounge around,
grousing with other curdled
hearts they think are friends.
Why shout back when, in the library,
they denounce a printer
that, for all others, works fine?
Didn’t their hopes take
a crippling fall? Aren’t they dropsical
with lack of love, guts bursting
with the winds of “Why not me?”
Never think—even if they seem
to prosper—they don’t writhe in psychic
hovels, begging-cups replete
with holes. Never think their limbs
don’t shake, muscles crow-barred
off their bones by useless efforts
to pump up their punctured pride.
Decline to provide the whack-
across-the-face Justice declares
their due. Be sure—as you despise
their jowls, and the cankered
holes from which they spray /
spout / spew—that even
on your worst day, they don’t resemble
you.
- Suffer the Shriveled of Spirit to Curse at You - February 9, 2016
- This Morning in Nebraska - January 28, 2014
