Isn’t one of your prissy richpeoples’ swans
Wouldn’t
be at home on some pristine pond
Chooses
the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers,
condoms
in its tidal fringe
Prefers
to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck
into the body of a Great Lake,
Swilling
whatever it is swans swill,
Chardonnay
of algae with bouquet of crud,
While
Clevelanders walk by saying Look
at that big duck!
Beauty
isn’t the point here; of course
the swan is beautiful,
But
not like Lorie at 16, when
Everything
was possible—no
More
like Lorie at 27
Smoking
away her days off in her dirty kitchen,
Her
kid with asthma watching TV,
The
boyfriend who doesn’t know yet she’s gonna
Leave
him, washing his car out back—and
He’s
a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and
It’s
not his kid anyway, but he loves her, he
Really
does, he loves them both—
That’s
the kind of swan this is.