We Tried to Be Good

We Tried to Be Good This is not an apology. I don’t think there’s anyone left To give it to. We tried to be good With the little we had Kept a ledger by the doorway For the ones coming back Put the children near the pipes When the heat came on Gave the old ones the coats Until the fuel was all gone We said nobody gets left out In the sleet by choice Then the numbers got smaller And so did our voice First it was a favor Then it was a rule Then it had a desk Then it had a room We tried to be good God, we tried With our hands on the lock And our eyes open wide We tried to be fair We tried to be clean We made a little mercy Then we fed it to the machine We tried to be good We tried to be good No one said exile No one said cage We just moved their initials To another page No one said hunger No one said debt We just asked who could work And who could not yet One man stopped speaking When his quota came due One woman kept smiling Like she already knew First it was a ledger Then it was a line Then it was a locked door Then it was fine We tried to be good God, we tried With our hands on the lock And our eyes open wide We tried to be fair We tried to be clean We made a little mercy Then we fed it to the machine We tried to be good We tried to be good The worst ones were easy to name The loud ones The cruel ones The ones who enjoyed What the rest of us became But we were quieter We were useful We washed the cups We wrote things down We looked away At the right time And we called it Helping out We tried to be good God, we tried With our hands on the lock And our eyes open wide We tried to be fair We tried to be clean We made a little mercy Then we fed it to the machine We tried to be good We tried to be kind We learned how to live With the line moving behind us We tried to be good We tried to be good Put my name down too.