The Brooklyn Rail

“Don’t fuck with success,” she said,
as though success were Texas,
mammoth in breadth and heady
with the sour smell of death,
someone else’s death.

If I were in charge for a minute,
I’d force Texan secession,
and grant statehood to Mexico,
which lacks truck with success
and is sweeter, if poorer, for it.

I have met with success, but
failed to bed her, the painted
bitch. If I could, I would forget
her, but she winks to me at
night, and I toss in my sheets,
criminally erect.