← v15n1, Spring 2016
Poetry · Volume 15, Number 1

You Sang Beautifully but You Didn’t Change Your Life

They all laughed and left

As if our brief life here were meant for laughter

Some with long faces and sharp teeth

Others with their repulsive jowly faces and sharp teeth

Laughed groaned and left

You sang beautifully but you didn’t change your life

You wept flailed about jumped and sang beautifully oh singer

But you didn’t change your life

You felt torn up inside you crawled to the john and upchucked

To the applause of thousands of spectators who kept stroking your cheek

For naught

You sang beautifully we felt so clever

Especially when madness had taken your head between its hands

And clasping it hard had begun to lick your lips

We’d seen nothing like this for so long a time

You stood you seemed unduly calm and you said,

“I’m damn sick and tired of this”

We returned home ate lunch gave a belch

Happy with the fact that although you sang so beautifully,

Not even you had been able to change your life