I have seen the

pale, sweatless ones in their beige cubicles

silently staring

in their airplanes

their clothes saying it all

saying all they have to say.
 
 

Did I seek this?

Did I sweat for this?

Do I want insured survival

at the cost of my soul?

Surely not.
 
 

It's not what I thought

as Faust told the devil

not really what I wanted

at all.
 
 

There seems to be no place

for educated American white trash

unless I toss the trash

the best part of me

selling my redneck white trash soul

for a spot in a cubicle.
 
 

But I can go home

and say it was all a

mistake, an illusion,

and sit on the bench

outside the post office

looking up and down the street

at the dust, miles and miles

of clean desert dirt

and smell the sage

and know who fathered

the puppies

and talk to the skinny old men

who spit between the spaces in their teeth

and tell me

they are not heroes

and tell me

don't fall in love with me,

I'm no good.
 
 

And in the afternoon, after

the mail has come and gone

I will drink coffee with my friends

and talk about writing a

cookbook of 1001 lard recipes

and how somebody ought to take

that old hound dog out to the vet

and get him fixed

because all the puppies

all over town

look just like him

but we like him too

so we never will.
 
 

Then the town drunk will stumble by

and call me his darling

saying he'll marry me

for the price of some

good Irish whiskey

and a dust devil will

put its arms around me

and leave some grit and tears

in my eyes

and it will be good

to be home again.