Shame is more important than guilt.
Food is more trouble than it’s worth.
We’re prettier than everybody else.
Nobody gets what they deserve.
Everybody has it coming to them.
We’re also smarter than everybody else.
If you’ve got it, spend it, and if you
Don’t have it, spend it as if you do.
We deserve more than everybody else.
Look at her, strutting what she doesn’t have.
Look at him, he thinks he’s got it
Coming to him. Like everybody else.
We have it and it doesn’t do us any
Good because nobody gets what they
Deserve more than everybody else.
—Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, is the author of many books of poetry, most recently Gulf Music.
