out like a lamb
I'm driving to work on a hot dark March morning,
too hot for March if you want to know the truth
which I think you do because who doesn't?
No one, that's who, even though we are
used to liars lying all around us nowadays:
liars on the radio, the television, in Congress,
the liars trying to sell us whatever new
processed foods they're pushing at the
free sample booths at Costco on Saturday
mornings when the crowds push & shove
through tables of jeans & paperbacks &
bulk packages of croissants & grapefruit slices
& the grapefruit makes me remember
the breakfast I skipped & how I'll probably
be grumpy all day & take it out on
my students, especially that one who just
can't stop divulging personal information
no one cares about, like how he twisted
his ankle at work & how his mother won't
stop fussing over the cat & how he is
interested in a high protein diet but really
who needs that much protein & the class
wants to tell him to shut up but we're too
polite, me included, so we nod & smile
& say that's too bad & oh so sorry
when what we really want is to shove him
out the door & tell him no one's interested
in what he's selling & please don't come back
but what can you do, he paid for the class so
there he is & maybe he'll get something out of it
but most likely not since everyone has to take
Freshman Comp even if like algebra it's mostly
worthless except for that bit about unknown
variables & to employ the unemployable
like me which reminds me to say my prayers
for the sweet life & comforts I have as I swerve
to miss the deer looming from darkness on the way
to the rest of its unfettered unsheltered life