complaint is often the result of an insufficient
ability
to live within
the obvious restrictions of this
god damned cage.
complaint is a common deficiency
more prevalent than
hemorrhoids
and as these lady writers hurled their spiked shoes
at me
wailing that
their poems will never be
promulgated
all that I can say to them
is
show me more leg
show me more ass—
that’s all you (or I) have
while
it lasts

and for this common and obvious truth
they screech at me:
MOTHERFUCKER SEXIST PIG!

as if that would stop the way fruit trees
drop their fruit
or the ocean brings in the coni and
the dead spores of the Grecian
Empire

but I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it’s enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub
on a frozen night
behind the ski lift at
Aspen.