As once I spilled hot coffee on the train
and watched it break in rivulets around
heel after heel, until a kindly man
tossed down his Daily News to stop the wound,
so, gaping at the gushing of your woe,
and all those things thrown down to quell the words—
those "anyways," those nods of "told you so"—
you spew still more from your insensate cords.

But there we part. I'm not at all like you;
my spill is not your spill. I soiled a train;
you spray your burning rants on hardened man.
Granted, I've gushed a wasteful word or ten,
but then I sturdied up, and gathered in,
and figured out a braver thing to do.