A Memorial Service
Who will rejoice at my death
as I am cheered now by the prospect
of Cheney's? Some thousands?
It would be a vanity to suppose so.
A wizened few who keep their bad reviews
bundled in their spleens.
And my landlord who'll be spared the cost
of further eviction proceedings: he'll rejoice.
Some five or six elderly writers
whose names always appear alongside mine
will be pleased to have outlasted me.
But what the great possess--
the Cheneys, the Caesars, the Yorks----
that lesser men lack are enemies
whose malice has become coextensive
with their crooked grins. I've not
encountered many such for a few years now,
but then I don't get about that much.
Even my worst enemies will not openly exult.
They'll think twice and come up with some
pious, backhanded compliment
such as how much their dogs always liked me.
But no one will feel a triumphant thrill
at the thought that what I represent
has been wiped out of existence.
A nobody like me can't hope to see
jeering crowds dance round his effigy.