core

love letters

lapin idiot, le pirate navigue ni pour les chats ni chiens

core

Gorgeous Julie, tiny Julie, nebulous Julie-- 
cardinals singing, "Julie, Julie, Julie, 
wake up, wake up, wake up"--
asked what a day off looked like for me.
She said it could be Saturday.
I couldn't answer,
denied the question.
Half an hour later,
she slipped a REESE'S Peanut Butter Cup into
my chalky cold
pixelated hand.
That night when I shifted up to the ceiling, 
disassociating from the party--
"So this is what's happening:
cards and words and laughing and circles and
loud metallic chip and took note, and
cheer, cheer, cheer 
and no one touching the pissaladière,
my  pissaladière"--
that candy bar fat
lost in my gut
helped
tug me
back

I keep assigning lengthy poems, yet
My students let long poems do them in.
I copy texts from Project Gutenberg,
And paste them in .doc files to count the words:
"But Byron's The Corsair is nowhere near
Childe Harold, Faerie Queene, Aurora Leigh
The Seasons-- Thomson always makes me weep--
Merrill's Changing Light... or Grainger's Sugar-Cane."
Sara cocks her head with sympathy,
"We all must come to terms with long poems."