One thing, at least, is good about mistakes:

We learn by them how not to live our lives.

These errors made but once, we won't remake.

Each day our agonies are fresh, our aches

Are newly forged, as bright and sharp as knives.

One thing, at least, is good about mistakes.

This poison drunk in haste our thirst will slake

For testing what our bodies can survive.

These errors made but once, we won't remake.

Perhaps a time or two our hearts will break,

But surely love will help us to revive.

One thing, at least, is good about mistakes.

The searing words I spat for anger's sake

I won't repeat - will I? - while I'm alive.

These errors made but once, we won't remake.

Oh we'd be victims of the cruelest jape

To wrong each wrong again a hundred times.

One thing there must be good about mistakes.

But errors, once they're made, we make and make.

Epistolary

To whom it may concern, as dear to me

as air: my doubt of you's a sour stone,

a serpent 'round my heart. Your ghost, at sea

Might swallowed be to wander halls of bone,

Your jail the whale that made you: 'prisoned wraith

From bottled boat, excreted fantasy.

However, if this note were sent in faith

It might be found and caught between your teeth.

It takes a mouth, an ear, so many words

To lay this revenant. But if I speak,

To prove your life, will fog of breath just blur

A mirror's glass? Whose feet set boards to creak?

Whose hand is this I hold? I am sincere

In this, at least: I wish that you were here.

At the fun'ral of truth, there were snickers and screams,

but no weeping at all. When the Jackal stood up

and he chewed up some words, they just split at the seams.

And his teeth were so white as he held up his cup —

when he toasted the body and drank his own health —

but his words were just gristle and sinew and flash.

"Have you seen this here suit? Though I say it myself,

it's fantastic, you know? Just the finest of flesh."

Setting cup on the corpse, he continued to speak:

"There's no body, you know. This is nonsense and lies.

I inherit, however." He wiped at a streak,

something red on his tie, while he swatted the flies.

"And a murderer? Me?" Then he laughed with a snort.

"Don't believe what you read... It's all mine now, by law,

you have given it freely. I'll prove it in court.

It is hate that makes right" — and he held up a claw —

"and it's might that makes cash. Only losers can die.

You all asked me to feed you, so turn up the lights.

On your right, on your left, have a look with your eyes —

they are fat, they are foreign; unlikely to fight."

And they licked at their lips and they said, "What a treat!"

And they all drew their blades and they started to eat.