The end of March Madness

Suddenly
by Louis Simpson

The truck came at me,
I swerved
but I got a dent.

The car insurance woman
informs me that my policy
has been cancelled.

I say, "You can't do that."
She gives me a little smile
and goes back to her nails.

Lately have you noticed
how aggressively people drive?
A whoosh! and whatever.

Some people are suddenly
very rich, and as many
suddenly very poor.

As for the war, don't get me started.
We were too busy watching
the ball game to see

that the things we care about
are suddenly disappearing,
and that they always were.

"Suddenly" by Louis Simpson, from Struggling Times.

Louis Aston Marantz Simpson (born March 27, 1923 in Jamaica) is a Jamaican poet. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At The End Of The Open Road.His father was a lawyer of Scottish descent, and his mother Russian. At 17 he emigrated to the United States and began attending Columbia University. During World War II, from 1943 to 1945 he was a member of the 101st Airborne Division and would fight in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. After the end of the war he attended the University of Paris.