Influential Meeting #301

Something of him in a skittish heap.
A distrust that stands in for glamor.
And because we were sexed oppositely

I meant something to him quite apart
from myself. He was reading too much
into the flight literature.

I was out of guile
but close to the grain
of matter. We were a kind of

kin to one another.
What appropriate action figure
should we pose with?

I've never even been issued
a speeding ticket.
This is because I've never sped.



 

 

 

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Philip Guston's Coffee Pot
     (Untitled, 1980)

A needle through metal?
Look at all these stitches.

The steam I'm making
pesters the air into a whistle.

I feel like a lead weight today.

Or maybe I'm just typical:
A coffee pot made of flesh.

Why should I settle
on an answer?

I'm still thinking.

 

 

 

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Outside the Poet's Tower

The dog, skittery-legged,
cowering and earnest.
Of his two different-colored eyes,
the blue one bulged.
In the car we searched
for something to give him to eat.
As the poor dog's luck would have it
I stepped backward and
right on his paw.
He gave a yelp
but instantly, instantly
forgave me--
as if the yelp couldn't be real
so much as a disguise,
a penance and a superb moment of acting.

 

 

 

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