For Billy

For Billy


by Jack Spicer

That old equalizer
Called time by some
Love by others
Cock by a few
Will come to meet you at the door
When you go
(Knowing that death is as near to you as water)
Go to fuck and say goodbye to your Mexican whore.
They will be waiting in the same room for you:
Time with his big jeans
Love with his embarrassed laugh
Cock with his throat cut wearing a bandana.
They can equalize anybody
January, February, March,
April, May, June, July, August, September,
October,
November,
December,
I love you, I love you,
Scream when you come.
There is not another room to go into
But hell, Billy,
It was hell when they shot you.

POublished on The Poetry Foundation

Jack Spicer, “For Billy” from My Vocabulary Did This To Me: The Collected Poems of Jack Spicer (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2008). Used by permission of Peter Gizzi