Into the mute and blue-
green marble mailbox my dust deserves to go,
though not for that which I’m going.
I deserve to go, and not alone,
because I did not sing loud enough
about this life, this world.
Singing poorly is acceptable. Not loud enough is not.
There were too many things I saw
of which I did not sing, things raw
and eyeball-vibrating ravishing, or worse, things I forgot,
until a pin-stick shock, a creak
in a house of wood waking to heat,
or a bent nail remembered for me.
How did Spinoza define happiness?
Patient acceptance of the inevitable?
I find my self im-
patient. I’m often impatient. Not for the inevitable,
which can wait patiently for me.
So far, the Governor’s not called the Warden,
whose palm has an itch.
He prefers an electrical switch.
My lawyers, having, in law, no degrees,
are not allowed in to counsel me.
Appeals are exhausted, or at least very tired.
So, I scratch this out on my last yellow legal pad’s last
page: I deserve to go,
but not for that which
and get the needle.
from Ploughshares