Sentimental Ed.


When you try to talk about
your lacerated skin, your ulcerated
tongue, the numbing sorrow and
near invisibility you feel, the silence
imposed on you by the next horror
rising up from the news that forces you
to push back the limits you were sure
human depravity couldn’t exceed

and when you see the elderly
who have lost too much to remain
Joe or Joan but are now the patient
in Room 235 or in Ward D, bed 17,
whose watery eyes have leaked all
the memories that made them them,
whose bones are brittle as their selves,
who have less of a say in the world
than a gnat because at least a gnat is
insistent

and when you try to talk about
the serial depredations to the land, air
and water, the shrinking ice fields and
rampant calving of icebergs, poor
shrinking Louisiana and sinking Venice,
don’t forget truth in American politics,
faith in the Catholic Church, honor in
big business and the value of all souls.