My good friend Elizabeth asked me for a poem
She knows I have many lying around my home
Anthologies, collections, selections, complete works
And dozens of them, verses of my own.
In the inner suburbs, men dressed in clothes of crumpled neglect
Have approached me for few dollars – for a bite
‘Can you spare a coupla dollars for a cup of coffee?”
Then they’d shuffle off into the twilight of their lives.
Students, eager to make a few dollars, ring now and then
To ask if I’d like to buy a book of vouchers
Or perhaps make a donation to the blind
The deaf, the afflicted, the homeless, the dying, the needy
My wife, de facto, woman, tyrant, lover, friend
Asks that I take the garbage out, and more
To change our daughter’s napkins, clean up the shit,
Clean the toilet, and put my dirty clothes in the washing machine.
So it goes. People are always asking things of me
Some want money, though none have requested my body
Some want a piece of my soul, in part or whole
But all that my good friend, Elizabeth, wants is a poem.