In the freezing gray abandoned stadium,
deep in the bombed-out
downtown section
of your poverty-stricken reptile brain,
there is still—a great roaring
cheer that keeps spontaneously rising
from the creaking, dilapidated
ghost-haunted grandstand
where your mom and your dad
and your mom and dad's moms and dads
are all sitting in a specific
pattern, whitish translucent,
sucking toothless
on chalky candy cigarettes
and dust-coated Ringpops
they can't taste anymore.
And every time
you even so much as
set a foot in the game—
you can hear them
put down the concessions
and resume howling it, tongueless, at you:
Military, Medicine,
Church, Law,
Economy!
Military, Medicine,
Church, Law,
Economy!
What else on this earth
will your words be worm-
food for?
Every B-
plus you get
could be an A-minus;
and even the A-pluses—should be
coming a bit
quicker!
