Now take this guy next door,
always on the prod, kind of a preacher
about stuff like love instead of hate.
I say, shut up and keep your nose clean.
But not him, hell no, hit him and
he’d turn the other cheek. I ask him,
ever been in the army? Yes, he says,
even won a sharpshooter’s medal.
Then how come, I says, you’re so against
the military? He says, murder’s wrong.
You’re full of poopnagel, I says,
ever meet a payroll? Yes, he says,
I ran a small factory once.
What can you do with a guy like that?
He had polio, you know, limps a little.
Now he teaches music, gives programs,
sings in the choir—I got to hand
it to him. His relatives? Hell, they
never go near him, like to tuck him away
someplace, a nursing home or something.
They’d send flowers on his birthday
and quit feeling small the way they do
because they never had his guts.
He don’t say so but it’s like he sees
us weaned on plastic milk, I guess
he plants a different garden than we do.
