Post Office

by Charles Bukowski

Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly-all else is desperation.

God or somebody keeps creating women and tossing them out on the streets, and this one’s ass is too big and that one’s tits are too small, and this one is mad and that one is crazy and that one is a religionist and that one reads tea leaves and this one can’t control her farts, and that one has this big nose, and that one has boney legs … But now and then, a woman walks up, full blossom, a woman just bursting out of her dress … a sex creature, a curse, the end of it all.

“YOU DON’T SMELL FIRE,” I yelled, “YOU SMELL SMOKE!”