First line stolen from Ezra Pound

come, let us pity those who are better off than we

let us pity them

they deserve our sympathy
because they are significant

because they don’t read books full of
poets no one has ever heard of

let us help them wash the blood

let us pity them
the blood washes right off them
where us it would stain

let us tithe to their generosity
their one percent so much bigger than our ten

let us absolve them of guilt and let us accept responsibility for

excusing their actions.
they know not what we do

let us pity those better off than us,
even the less notorious. we needn’t just pity the cruel;

there’s the merely lucky. they deserve commendations, our

adoration,
our starting a fan club.

they deserve our pity with their heralded marriages and all we

believe about them falsely
let us pity their plight, we never let them be their own true

selves

they can’t respect us for that, carried the burden of that guilt.

they deserved our pity even
before we gunned them down in the street.

Don’t pity the less fortunate, whose weight would pull us under

short of shore. don’t pity them
unless they were swallowed to their certain fate without a jealous thought of us.

hope they pitied us while at first they panicked all the way to

their acceptance.