told her about the walks in the mall,
how happy I was just to sit and read –
except reading Frank Norris, of course –
I mean, who on earth could be happy then?
‘Why are you telling me this?’ she said,
tacking back to more analytical words.
‘No matter how devoted to my job,
I would never read one of your books’!
Sunflower
Like a foul-tempered baseball manager
observing the bumbles of his hapless nine,
I obsessively ate sunflower seeds.
Chewing and spitting. Spitting and chewing.
In winter, as I walked home from college,
roughed up by the hilarious comments
about my appearance, my strategy
was soon limited to ‘eat lots of seeds.’
Of course, it didn’t help I had the pride
of Richard II. It didn’t help I switched
from sunflower seeds to popcorn chicken
and from popcorn chicken to popcorn steak.
I didn’t need another reviewer
who hated ‘frivolity’ to tell me
I was losing all Bunyon Review cred,
and that all things from Kansas made him sick.
Basil
The discovery of the basil plant was not
made by British actor Basil Rathbone,
but by an ordinary guy from Boston
who was just still Basil from the block.
It was, as they say in the plant-birth biz,
‘licorice-y.’ Not really your kind of thing,
you confessed, after saying I ‘made up’
that ‘stuff about humans needing affection.’
You can’t hate someone for saying ‘We were
together for a long time, but were we,
like, ever, really together?,’ but it sure
helps you appreciate arena football.
I learned to hate basil, called it buttfool,
delaware parsley, poor man’s toback,
while I sat weeping in Old Navy pants.
It’s hard to hate wearing Old Navy pants.
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