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Hello Poem
Aren’t you supposed to be all alive and tell me what is going on? What is
A-happening?
Poem, why so nonplussed? So hors-rendu? So hasard? So misérable?
Poem, you are supposed to be for me
Not against me.
Do not tell me that part of the problem is I know I am hot!
It’s spring, Poem, take us outside.
Poem, why did I come home from France without any idée and an Italian
Vogue?
Poem—so silent so—handsome, Poem.
So Mediterranean.
Poem, you have a nice face,
A good form, but
Poem—you are wrongheaded.
Poem—I want to be left alone.
Such a dabbler you are, Poem—a dilettante
And a renaissance man.
So hard to tell, Poem, till you take off your clothes.
Poem, I think you are straight.
Poem, I know Hemingway baise-ed you in the derrière.
Poem, I know you are freer from history than prose fiction or drama!
Poem—do you want to be translated into French?
Poem—avez-vous ce que vous voulez?
French poem, you are very sexy.
Poem—did you depart for Marseille?
Poem—votre train is retarded! Quelle voie? Quelle garde?
Dream poem, you have shaved genitals!
Poem you are a plump pretty girl with feather earrings and a quick thick
Unread book.
Poem, eat my poussez!
Poem, Kay Ryan doesn’t like you!
Not at all!
Poem, you have a engraved stone for a heart!
(No, I will not tell you with what.)
A sheep for a lover.
Poem, you farted in your sleep.
Poem, you only have to do it once. . .
Poem, you get so sad at all the right/wrong places.
Poem, I’m afraid your strangeness is still not that true.
O Poem, we could have been so good together!
Poem, you think you are working, but
Poem—get a job.
Poem—get a life.
(Then, of course,
You of all people
Poem, must
Change it.)
Poem—you say too little.
Poem—you are so not enough.
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Olena Kalytiak Davis is the author of four full-length collections, including Late Summer Ode, out this fall from Copper Canyon Press. (See also this link.)
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Hannah Hoch, Modenschau (Fashion Show),detail, 1925.
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Author: Terence Winch
