I haven't the heart to say
you are not welcome here.
Your clothes smell of poverty, illness
and unswept closets.
5 You come unannounced to my door
with your wild-faced wife and your many children.
I tell you I am busy.
I have a dentist's appointment.
I have a terrible cold.
10 The children would run mad
through our living room, with its collected
bibelots and objects of art.
I'm not as young as I was.
I am terrified of breakage.
15 It's not that I won't help you.
I'd love to send you a box
of hand-milled soap;
perhaps a check,
though it won't be enough to help.
20 Keep in mind that I came to your reading:
Three of us in the audience,
your wife, myself, and the book-store owner,
unless we count the children who played trains
over your wife's knees in their torn jeans
25 and had...