What needs to be done?
Fill out the application
and enclose a résumé.

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Regardless of the length of life
a résumé is best kept short.

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Concise, well-chosen facts are de rigueur.
Landscapes are replaced by addresses,
shaky memories give way to unshakable dates.

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Of all your loves mention only the marriage,
of all your children only those who were born.

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Who knows you counts more than who you know.
Trips only if taken abroad.
Memberships in what but without why.
Honors, but not how they were earned.

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Write as if you’d never talked to yourself
and always kept yourself at arm’s length.

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Pass over in silence your dogs, cats, birds,
dusty keepsakes, friends, and dreams.

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Price, not worth,
and title, not what’s inside.
His shoe size, not where he’s off to,
that one you pass yourself off as.

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In addition, a photograph with one ear showing.
What matters is its shape, not what it hears.
What is there to hear, anyway?
The clatter of paper shredders.