December 10, 2018Elegy
I’ll never forget that punk Cagney jabbing words
like shivs as if he knew everything
was black-and-white as the movie. Plump
with urban blarney, his old friend the priest
visits just before his hanging, tells him, Listen,
it’s not too late, the ticket to heaven is acting
the coward when you climb the gallows. That way
the street kids won’t have a bad guy for a hero.
You think, Well, maybe. —Or maybe going good
is a fool’s dream. We all know Cagney was pissed
at the universe for the lonely Jack he was dealt,
how he would have told the orphans the end
is close as tomorrow’s gruel, grab
what you can. Then he would have laughed
in their faces. Can you see the thing
forever announcing its arrival, like grey rust
crawling up those silver skyscrapers
every dusk, no matter how good or bad
the deck? Maybe there ain’t no heaven,
maybe there is. So what do you do
when the two cops lead you to the last
stairs you’ll ever climb. Either way,
you’ll be dead in a few seconds. But by god,
you’re alive right now, this very moment
widening like a summer day, the mother
you never had backlit in the park, saying,
Baby, the world’s all yours. Make it count.
from #61 - Fall 2018