My Name is Tom Smith

by Russ Marshall

My name is Tom Smith. "Yes, really!" is my response

to women in bars and cops who stop me on the street

because I look like somebody. Some other people

in bars take me as a narc because, they tell me later,

of the way I look or because of the way I walk. When they

find out my name, they kind of step back a little and shoot me

a sidelong glance. I don't mind. I think it's kind of funny. My

mother, Mary Smith, snickered when I told her. She still thinks

I look more like Charley Manson.

My name is Tom Smith and I work in this here beat-up, red-brick

factory in Detroit. I get along with most everybody

even though there are a lot of ass-holes in this world and some

of them work here. It's 1985 and I'll be dead in 2 years at 48.

Somebody will find me on the floor of my mobile home

in Belleville. Too many cigarettes, booze and a bad diet

I guess. Can't really blame the job - I'm here in this life

because I got nowhere else to be. I had a double by-pass

a while back or else some other ass-hole would be working

this press right now.

Me and the ex-wife divorced a long time ago. Our three kids

are grown up and living away from me and her. Two are

doing OK. But that one girl? Well - she's a lot like me. Likes to

have a good time. She'll finally get married after I'm gone

but it won't last. My other two will hang in there. As for me?

Once in a while after the bars close and that horny old thang

raises it's ugly head, I call up my emergency lover-girl and we

have a good time. She understands and doesn't question.

In a few years she will write a poem about finding my grave

among graves in a lifeless, barren field. Late, she writes, a visit

to a favorite old cemetery satisfies her search for evidence

of a life among the discarded beer cans and time-worn stones.

My name is Tom Smith.

But you knew all that and more you won't tell. The presses will

at last fall silent. Three black crows will stand high - nodding

on their roost. I will yield and glide away. I will take

nothing because I brought nothing. I will give to you what

I had - to hold 'till it's your time. You will remember me long

after I cock my head and plunge from the ledge.

And you will write a poem about me - or will it

be about you. My name is Tom Smith.