The Loss, The Loss, The Loss

the violets are waving like whores on a train out of
Norfolk,
Virginia was a nice lady who had nice
legs
but had to wear these
elastic plastic stockings because
of
bad veins due to a
Dutch greatgrandfather who
drank 12 quarts of beer a
day
and she died
when she
set herself on fire in the men's room of a
Pennsylvania eastbound
while smoking a Dutch Master in her (lower) lips
for $20
for 3 sweet boys from Harvard, really nice boys really
who wanted to photograph this
thing
where after the cigar the
3/4 jacked-off bulldog
in the wire suitcase (got on board through devious
means) was taught to leap in like
Normandy
like the waves off the coast of an
expensive resort
like
Joan of Arc
like your fingers holding mine
as the right-wing politician who wanted the presidency
and thinks atomic power is the chariot of Christ
cackles in his bloody sleep
of new life of man born in unfortunate places
and denied the final grace:
the social security of a
pisspot in a pisspot
day and
time.

from Penguin Modern Poets 13