My mother tells me four guys
I graduated with are already
millionaires. Three are already
Phd’s. Thirteen lawyers. Seven
doctors. One’s an actor. "Why
don’t you go to law school"
she says, "it’s not too late,
who ever heard of a Jewish poet?"
I don’t tell her that six
I graduated with are already gone.
One fell down an elevator shaft.
Two murdered in Chicago. Three
suicides. Somebody has to speak
for the dead.

"Poet" appeared in the 1989 issue of Rhino.