|
The Sonneteer 
I was famous, I won the Hawthornden prize.
Girls flashed me. One said, 'You're the poet, right?
What a godawful waste it would be, otherwise.'
I told her my talents would not last the night,
and it was a waste, you bet, any which way.
She said, 'Poetry boy, I don't give a damn.
I've got time to kill, make a sonnet for moi.'
'She hawks her beauty in the night,' I began,
and stopped, unable to motor my mouth.
One morning I stepped out for cigarettes
and hopped a subway to the south—
I thought I'd vanish myself and my debts.
For months she heard my step on the stair.
It wasn't me, brothers, I was taking the air.
|
