"A Little Monday Song."
Mrs. Robbins likes my funny poem.
"I rose up at 9 o'clock.
The Sunday paper spread its sickly stale immediacy
about the drowsy bed.
My eyeballs ached from reading the columns of the dead.
The dull cold eye of winter stared through the dirty panes.
I tried the shock of water, slipped aspirin in my veins.
The cups and spoons were grubby, there
was trouble with the drains.
I rose up at 9 o'clock, put a pistol to my brain.
The mailman rang the bell at noon,
and I rose up again, and brought the milk and paper in,
an alkali for pain.
Tomorrow's sun is burning Australia's arid face,
and over the Atlantic its landing light
will trace the measures of the hours, inexorably in space."