BLUE SUIT

They told me evil was the skull.

They told me evil was

The glowing eye,

The smoking mouth.

To be sure,

A caricature.

Evil, they told me,

Is the thing hiding behind black cloaks,

Plotting and scheming. 

Because the plotters

And the schemers

Are always the evil ones.

Always, also, dark. Always so dark. 

I wonder, though, if instead of skulls and snakes and vampires,

If evil is the man in the clean blue suit,

Drinking straight whiskey on the rocks.

If evil,

True evil,

Is just the shadow
Of another person, only too bored to care.