Oscar

Actors, these
Smiling faces I see
Stealing a glance at me
And I smile indulgingly
Encouragingly...
It is a smile, after all

I know naught
If they go back to their wives and women
And shout and smoke and get drunk
I know naught
If they clean the dirt out of their nails by a toothpick
If they wipe their brow
with their two buck ironed, stuffed white branded shirt
I know naught
If they look at a girl and smear her
in the holiness of their heads
I know naught
If they yell at their mothers for having spent too much, forgotten too much, lived too much

But they sure deserve Oscars
For their poker fac-ing

I know naught
If they stole a glance out of nothingness and tortured their table
I know naught
If they bothered about their aging shoes, thinning hair, slipping time

Drip by drip
They never had a will to measure

I know naught
If they undressed me
with their smiling gentlemanly eyes
I know naught
If they displayed their wares through the books they read, women they slept with, and the hotels they stayed in

I know this
I am happy
With their faces, poker faces

Switch Off the Lights
Hand them the Oscar
And send them back home