In Order To

Apply for the position (I've forgotten now for what) I had

to marry the Second Mayor's daughter by twelve noon. The

order arrived three minutes of.

I already had a wife; the Second Mayor was childless: but I

did it.

Next they told me to shave off my father's beard. All right.

No matter that he'd been a eunuch, and had succumbed in

early childhood: I did it, I shaved him.

Then they told me to burn a village; next, a fair-sized town;

then, a city; a bigger city; a small, down-at-heels country;

then one of "the great powers"; then another (another, an-

other)—In fact, they went right on until they'd told me to

burn up every man-made thing on the face of the earth! And

I did it, I burned away every last trace, I left nothing, nothing

of any kind whatever.

Then they told me to blow it all to hell and gone! And I blew

it all to hell and gone (oh, didn't I). . .

Now, they said, put it back together again; put it all back the

way it was when you started.

Well. . . it was my turn then to tell them something! Shucks,

I didn't want any job that bad.

Source: Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957)