Happy Endings

I like the story where the cowboy lives

because the bullet struck the whiskey flask

instead of his thin-walled heart. Or the one

where the boy is thrown from the wrecked car

and lands perfectly on a pillow of grass

instead of the awful road. I'm to the point

where if someone has to get killed, please

deliver a clear lesson along with that death.

No random, Godless acts. No mad dogs, no

hatchets being wielded at good girls slumbering

in the folds of their warm beds. After reading Cinderella,

after observing the fat and happy cartoon mouse

weekly escaping the ravenous cat, after watching

my fellow earthlings pull together and pound

the Martians into the rock-hard desert using sarcasm

and sticks, I've come to appreciate the happy ending,

no matter how tacky or unearned. It's today. And death tolls

continue to climb. You think I want the truth?