I Am So Depressed I Feel Like Jumping in the River Behind My House but Won’t Because I’m Thirty-Eight and Not Eighteen

Bring me a drink.

I need to think a little.

Paper. Pen.

And I could use the stink

of a good cigar—even

though the sun’s out.

The grackles in the trees.

The grackles inside my heart.

Broken feathers and stiff wings.

I could jump.

But I don’t.

You could kill me.

But you won’t.

The grackles

calling to each other.

The long hours.

The long hours.

The long hours.