I brought a book to make the time pass.
It’s nothing but another boring thriller.
The people in it, they don’t like it, either.
We’re going to change the whole thing around.
You ought to read it when we get it done.
It’s hard to be in a book, living a life
somebody else made up, doing things
you don’t like to do, starting your life
halfway through a meal, or driving to work.
Also sometimes the print is very small.
So, anyway, if the girl across the aisle
should brush her hair back, like this, or smile
in such a way as says she wants attention,
I wish that you would trade places with her.
I have more attention than most people.
I can give her any amount she wants.
Not that it will change much for me.
I’ve got the only future I’m going to have.
But bless me, Lord, I could have been born
somewhere else where no one speaks English.
There are places that even those that live there
never heard of, places with dictators
that force democracy on everybody
and people are poor and dumb and ride donkeys.
Lord love us all, we don’t know what we do.
I needed so much to do something well
after yesterday and the day before,
I thanked a woman twice and kissed her hand
because she said I was a perfect stranger.
People have loved and left and no one remembers.
The window here could be a clock, Lord love us,
the way the fields fly by. Sometimes I pray
to be here for whatever happens next
and hope that if it’s good it happens twice
or lasts a long time.
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