For That One True Sentence

Joyce had bouts of poverty.

Poe died dead broke. Federal writers

got a New Deal. Remember Hemingway

and his long-suffering first wife, Hadley?

It was her trust fund that launched him

to Paris. He drank rum St. James

in the cafés while she shivered for lack

of a winter coat. His second wife's uncle

gave him the dough to go on safari.

Fitzgerald couldn't buy a break,

falling in love with Zelda who held-out

for success, crazy and jealous of its source.

This is being written between questions

of when will I get to cutting the grass

and fixing the roof. There's a cafe

not far from here, a place I'd find as

comfortable as a hemorrhoid the day

after chili and beer. Some work devoid

of stimulus-gratis, others are successful

stereotypes, lapping up the milk of pretense,

cats paws scratching the hands that feed them.

And what does it matter?

We all pay the vulgar coinage

for that one true sentence.