Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

everybody is always angry about the truth

and got back into bed with her
and she held him like a baby,
and he thought, hell, what kind of man am I?
and then he didn’t care

very little love is not so bad
or very little life

that quiet moment
on the bough
as the cat
crouches.

I am a helpless burning thing
among other helpless burning things

the dead are drunk on New Year’s eve

3 of us under that stairway
were killed in World War II.
another one is now manager of a mattress
company.

can hardly get a job now
for the same reason I couldn’t then:
I don’t know anything, I can’t do
anything.

Standing here,
doing what?

I have not lied to anything
even death will have exits
like a dark theatre.