How I recall that all her friends were "enormously gifted" and "exceedingly bright."
I was a dim bulb.
Perhaps I knew a "gifted thief."
This was implied
As she was of the Social Register of NY
And I was from Cal-i-for-Nigh-ay, and we were, unfortunately, Back East.
I'm serious!
I'm serious as a heart attack, my train-riding-addict-hobo boyfriend used to say,
too often.
Woops, oops, I proved her case.
Her aforementioned friends were working on committees for political reform and
election to public office
And I was of a lower class, yes, indeed-arriviste: lower, really, than the working
class, with all our
Pretentious collecting,
Belief in merit, college degrees, and not birth,
Belief in profits, not savings
Bestowed on each succeeding generation like the sky and the earth.
Unlike her, though,
I liked my boyfriends really, really low,
I liked the criminal class,
I liked the suffering and the drinking,
I liked the violence, the big shrieking,
And the jail time, and the thinking.
(Show off! Show off! Show off!) |
