YOU MAY BE DEAD

You may be alive and still carelessly breaking hearts
or, you may be dead ⁠— I don’t know or care
except…

You may be dead ⁠— then who will grieve for you?
Weeping ladies hidden in heavy black veils
might surreptitiously lay a flower on your expensive bronze casket.

You may be dead ⁠— then who would trace the many secret branches grown of your hot semen?
Weeping ladies in torn black veils
raising your unacknowledged children on their own.

You may be dead ⁠— then who will truly care?
Weeping ladies smiling behind their secretive black veils
whispering “Good-by, Bastard!”