I was foolish to think that poetry
could save me, save anyone. Certainly
not the birds or the ginkgo trees. I bought
a happy light, though. That's not even
a euphemism, that's the brand name.
So you can buy happiness after all, as long
as you sit in front of it twenty minutes
a day, 6 to 24 inches from your face
(but don't look right into it; even too
much happiness is bad for you).
A man told me once he only dated much younger
women because they weren't so cynical about
love. I didn't bother to tell him that it was of course
men like him that made them that way. But why
try and change your behavior when you can just
trade it all in for a new model? Everything's disposable,
even the spiders have gone back into hiding.
There are as many squirrels flat on the road
as running along the top of the backyard fence
and the ubiquitous deer, god they are annoying
the way they have adapted so well to this town,
better than I have, munching the flowers from
everyone's yard, the leaves from the trees, grass,
the yellow tops of dandelions.
My future as an impoverished old lady gives me
a sideways grin and shrugs. Still better than
the future you left for your son, admit it, still
better than that.
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