Little Red Corvette
Do not mock the middle-aged man
who buys the red-hot sports car,
simplifying his plight as a mid-life crisis,
as if there were anything commonplace
or comical about the word ‘crisis’
reserving pity only for those historically
disenfranchised or downtrodden, as if
men in sports cars deserve to be stoned,
as if the very fact that he can afford
such luxury sanctions your disdain
first, work your entire adult life
from the moment you graduated until
the current minute, still on the phone
with a client or calculating hours or
payments or insurance or bills
then give away half of everything
you own to an ex-wife who despises you
because you turned out to be ordinary,
and spend it on kids who tolerate you
only because you provide security
dash to the ground every private dream
you ever had and light them on fire, as
you haven’t had time to play guitar in
thirty years, or bike, or write a novel, and
watch people smirk when you reminisce
wake up every morning without any
purpose, or inspiration, or support, yet
burdened by the expectations of all those
who hate you for no reason other than
the fact that you simply followed the plan
the one that your parents had taught you,
that society sanctioned, that your boss
demanded, that your family expected,
and not one person ever bothered to ask
what you really wanted or cared about
then see if that Corvette doesn’t hum
loud enough to drown out
your despair.
