A big blue cheer goes up
over the town when they find
the body of Joey the town drunk
lying on the common at dawn.

“We always knew
it’d end this way,” they hoot.
It’s always grim around here,
so everyone laughs

over such a public death.
They don’t happen often —
the kid cut apart on the North End tracks,
the frozen corpse uncovered

after the snows finally melt.
This one’s no less funny
for having been
so long anticipated.

No more, then, the lopsided mouth
and the ever present crusted briar pipe.
No more the mumbled nosiness
if you were out on the street

too late for his sensibilities.
“Where you going? Too young
for this late, too young,”
and he’d brandish a bottle

of ginger brandy in admonishment.  Irony
was unknown when we were kids
and we’d stay away until we knew
how easy he was to tweak

into incoherent anger.
How easy it was to steal that bottle
and toss it into the bushes
behind the library, and run.

When the word spread that he’d died
sleeping rough, we felt a twinge
of guilt that passed.  The town
wouldn’t be the same without him;

we bent then our seemingly immortal selves
to the task of replacing him.
How could we continue to live here
if there was no unfortunate to jeer,

if there was no Joey to laugh at?
We stared at each other as we passed
the bag, the joint, the mirror,
visualizing briar pipes in each other’s mouths,

wondering to whom
would fall the honor
of being
the butt of the traditional joke.

If you don’t do
what you’re told
as a matter of course,

if you know you heard
the antithesis come out of their mouths
a minute ago,

if you see where
their cards are hidden,
come sit by me.

If saying the right thing
is hemlock on your lips
when the wrong thing is true,

if they’re naked
but pretending to preen
their vaporwear,

if you know the gutpunch
of being self-destructively aware,
come sit by me.

Been there, done that,
bought the hairshirt.
I’ve seen the palms of too many hands

turned toward me, used to rage
at that,  finally said:
someone needs to do this,

it might as well be me
and the few I find
with the stomach for the blow.

We don’t live happy, we don’t
live well or long, but we live
stung and awake all the time.

There’s not much room
on this hard little bench I’ve made,
but it’s got a killer view.

There’s not much to drink
but water and nothing to eat
but hard bread; ah, well.

So if the ones you love most
offend you the most with this crap
because you thought they knew better,

if they spit and kick at you
and call you spare dog, old junk,
ripper of social fabric,

if you look at your hands all day
and wonder why they’re empty
and no one is shaking them anymore,

if you can see clear across the river
to the hallows on the other side
and know that no boat is gonna come for you

with balloons and ponies and a banner
saying “WE MISSED YOU,” and no band
will be playing when you get to the dock,

if you know all this and also know
that nothing’s able to still your disbelief
in the things that are not true,

or your anger at those
who would blind Mercy for others
to save their own righteousness

(even as you have from time to time,
you admit that, you know
you’re as bad as the rest

but you at least take a beat
to consider that before digging
into such tender eyes), if

you are alone right now
and ready to sink from it,
come sit by me.