A Good List by Brad Leithauser

If this isn't a poem with abundant raw material for New Year's resolutions, I don't know what is.

I'm amused that Brad Leithauser is a lawyer as well as a poet. When I first read this poem, I was thinking that not taking out a blackjack and flattening a patent lawyer might be construed as a sin of omission.

I didn't know what mulcted meant when I first read this poem. Not too long afterward, I forgot what mulcted meant. I didn't know what usufructed meant when I first read this poem. Not too long afterward, I forgot what usufructed meant. I grasp that it's possible to justly usufruct, but mulcting is a bad thing, no matter what context it's used in.

Some nights, can’t sleep, I draw up a list,
Of everything I’ve never done wrong.
To look at me now, you might insist
My list could hardly be long,
But I’ve stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard,
Nor struck his dog, backing out my car.
Never ate my way up and down the Loire
On a stranger’s credit card.

I’ve never given a cop the slip,
Stuffed stiffs in a gravel quarry,
Or silenced Cub Scouts on a first camping trip
With an unspeakable ghost story.
Never lifted a vase from a museum foyer,
Or rifled a Turkish tourist’s backpack.
Never cheated at golf. Or slipped out a blackjack
And flattened a patent lawyer.

I never forged a lottery ticket,
Took three on a two-for-one pass,
Or, as a child, toasted a cricket
With a magnifying glass.
I never said “air” to mean “err,” or obstructed
Justice, or defrauded a securities firm.
Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.

I never swindled a widow of all her stuff
By means of a false deed and title
Or stood up and shouted, My God, that’s enough!
At a nephew’s piano recital.
Never practiced arson, even as a prank,
Brightened church-suppers with off-color jokes,
Concocted an archeological hoax—
Or dumped bleach in a goldfish tank.

Never smoked opium. Or smuggled gold
Across the Panamanian Isthmus.
Never hauled back and knocked a rival out cold,
Or missed a family Christmas.
Never borrowed a book I intended to keep.
. . . My list, once started, continues to grow,
Which is all for the good, but just goes to show
It’s the good who do not sleep.

A Good List - Brad Leithauser by douglasbass

This poem can be found in the book Curves and Angles