What Can You Do?

there is always somebody to chop the wood

for you, to speak of the ways of God,

there is always somebody to kill the meat,

to unplug the toilet,

there is always somebody to bury you,

there are always the animals with the

beautiful eyes,

and there are always the gossips,

like Stanley leaning toward me

and saying in a soft voice,

“do you know that at the end of

his career Saroyan had other

people writing his stuff and that he

gave them twenty-five

percent?”

this was supposed to make me

feel good because I was a starving

writer and the rejects were arriving

in endless numbers.

it didn’t make me feel

good.

there is always somebody to make

you feel worse about the

human race.

there is always the dead dog on

the freeway.

there is always a fog full of

cutting

blades.

there is always Christ drunk in

the tavern with dirty

fingernails.