RJG BD
Richard John Gallup, wake up,
it’s your birthday, or maybe you’re
already awake and the spotlight
of the day is following you around
the stage and you can’t get away,
you are shining and special all
this very day you came sliding out
and your mother said Oy vey
though she was not Jewish
and in fact had never even heard
that expression before you taught it to her,
but let me explain that she said it
because having a child can hurt
and plenty, and being a child can hurt too,
which is why we never grow up or if we do
we’re awful, so it’s great that you never did
and I never did and probably won’t,
for even though we might totter and drool
we can always say Oy vey!
—Ron Padgett
2003 (previously unpublished)
Here’s the cover of Ron Padgett’s forthcoming book, a memoir of Dick Gallup, which Cuneiform Books will publish.
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Author: The Best American Poetry
