Cabbages

It is a song. You always knew the song;
I will not smile, pretend to play the fool,
And act as though disaster makes us strong.
You have lived it. I have been to school,
Learning mad words and foreign languages,
Testing my lessons against time and truth,
Discovering that love is cabbages
And episodes you call products of youth.
I know too many songs, dear, not to flaunt
The knowledge, and, pretending to be wise,
While other men deliver what you want
I savagely refuse to tell you lies.
I sing this to our past, and to (of course)
Your heart, a paramilitary force.