Richard Hoffman: Good Will and Salvation

Army clothes well chosen

will camoflauge privation

if in fashion and in season,


but better be, among

the well-heeled, on your toes,

and hold your tongue

so nobody ever knows


or suspects your real

origins, your actual class,

or that you got that cool

degree to cover your ass


long before you knew

what it would one day cost,

how it would change you,

what ­­friends would be lost.

Copyright 2021 Richard Hoffman.

Richard Hoffman‘s many books include a memoir Love & Fury (Beacon 2014) and a collection of poems Noon until Night (Barrow Street 2017).