excerpt
Be careful of too much imagination.
This attracts attention. Attention is trouble.
You have to develop competence, of course.
You have to think of doors opening toward you.
Take any pleasure in it and sooner or later
someone will notice your eyes have an absent look.
Someone with a glass in her hand will stop talking
and wait for you to answer. Practice caution.
Tell stories at parties the way you hear them.
Be careful of how the night moves into morning.
When things have gone right the day opens and closes,
one calendar square checked off and done with.
When something is wrong, when you’ve drunk too much
Or had a fight over love or lost money,
The night runs into the morning in sick streaks
Like the fluids of a dog run over in the last block.
Be careful of uniforms of any color,
of glass doors with initials painted on them,
of people always willing to go last.
Be careful of workers who have their own desks.
Be very careful of people whose young are hungry
and have large faces, of days set aside
for the celebration of national independence,
of those who are neither lonely nor afraid.
Be careful everywhere. This is a world—
what?—divided. Not as they say divided.
Think of this: running around the planet,
along the equator exactly, an iron fence;
half the population of the planet
stands on either side and shakes the bars
screaming to be let out, to be let in.
(From “Notes from the Agent on Earth: How To Be Human” by Miller Williams)
