When people ask me what I do,
I say,
“Whatever comes to mind,
as if you care.
I think I’ll talk to someone else.
So long.”

A person ought to try to get along,
which I would do,
if I knew something else
besides the same old crap to say:
“I’m glad you ask. I care
about feigned interest in my work. Mind

reading is my job. Your mind,
for instance, is a long
reel of profanities for which I care
as only sailors do:
I want to say
just those profanities myself. How else

can anyone stay sane? How else,
I mean, if we can’t call to mind
endearments, or, say,
obsequies. I long
to hear your obsequies, while you do
that slow limbo in your box. Take care.”

I may not care
for small talk, but what else
can anybody do,
when dimwits who don’t mind
how long
the other dimwits take to say

their dim, interminable say,
insist one should care.
Fine, I care: they take too long!
Let’s end all this! And something else:
death takes too long. Death I mind
enormously. I do.

But what do you say,
briefly? Have I lost my mind? Do you care?
Nobody else to anyone matters long.