Rest Assured

Sometimes you have to give up
On being dignified. Signs
Are all around you that now
Is one of those times, one of
Those intersections of verse
And worse with quotidian
Glances askance and away.

Once, in my hospital gown,
Teetering on the bed's edge,
Afraid to try my first step
To the john since surgery,
I laughed when Sarah told me,
Back when she barely knew me,
"Humiliation's healthy."

Every phrase, every ego,
Has exposable backside,
Every poem its hospital
Johnny, every faith its fools.
A marketing rep once wrote
Wallace Stevens to inquire
Just whether "The Emperor

Of Ice Cream" might lend itself
To an actual slogan.
The only problem was death
And poverty in the poem,
Not to say very little,
Actually, about ice
Cream you could sell with slogans.

Highbrow stuff. Supposedly,
It made Stevens, the lawyer,
Insurance executive,
And sturdy burgher, chuckle,
A company man himself.
Being someone of low brow
And disliking company

Myself, however I've worked
For group insurance lifelong,
I still laugh to see bad puns,
As in the Tex-Mex john where
Temporary wax paper
To cover toilet seats boasts
"Rest Assured! (TM)." Oh, do.