Thomas Dorsett

Postmodern Pity

His mother and brothers and sisters: crushed.
Think how many visits it'd take for us
to crack a smile after that!

The most bitter diagnosis
you are an insect has
a sweet prognosis: if you

don't know it, so what?
Though post-Confucian Analeptics
do not allow me to spray,

can't I squash in my own house
and throw him in the garbage?
Modern Kants would not protest;

should God's new image give a hoot?
Too bad he's neither strong or cute
and fits so well beneath my boot!

Shoot, if I spared this harijan,
what about his squiggly brothers
buried in crannies and holes?

The word is full of Samsas, Gregor,
it's nobody's fault. I've work to do;
excuse my post-Gandhian foot.