When They Fail You

Go away at speeds approaching disintegration

Go away with no trophy

Go away without your name carved into a bedpost, an oak tree, any lonely mountain

Be happy you had rain to drink

Be happy the nights left you alive for the big birthday party each burned down dawn

Be right like a broken clock, on the money, twice a day

Be a quitter, a 9 of clubs, but never an ace, be a fork dropped and picked up with a socked foot

Some people, some people, some people: I can answer for none of them

Go weigh the dice; go open the screen door for the mice; go weigh the reflection of the moon on each ripple as you swim away for good,

for better islands; go off and crush some flowers, wherever you stomp, stomp hard.