The Right to Grief

To Certain Poets About to Die 

Take your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow. 
Over the dead child of a millionaire. 
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank 
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to scratch off 
And get cashed 

Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine 
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to 

I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky 
His job is sweeping blood off the floor 
He gets a dollar seventy cents a day when he works 
And it’s many tubs of blood he shoves out with a broom day by day. 

Now his three year old daughter 
Is in a white coffin that cost him a week’s wages. 
Every Saturday night he will pay the undertaker fifty cents till the debt is wiped out 

The hunky and his wife and the kids 
Cry over the pinched face almost at peace in the white box 
They remember it was scrawny and ran up high doctor bills 
They are glad it is gone for the rest of the family now will have more to eat and wear 

Yet before the majesty of Death they cry around the coffin
And wipe their eyes with red bandanas and sob when the priest says, 
"God have mercy on us all" 

I have a right to feel my throat choke about this 
You take your grief and I mine — see? 
Tomorrow there is no funeral and the hunky goes back to his job sweeping blood off the floor at a dollar seventy cents a day 
All he does all day long is keep on shoving hog blood ahead of him with a broom