Everyday poet

When Emma was a poet, she wrote books even the least well-read listener enjoyed. She remains popular now only in academic circles and lives off her investments. She stays indoors, cloistered by agoraphobia, though she hungers for companionship. I hold the Huddleston chair at our University because I am her translator, the one person who can still walk inside and carry her words out again.

She’s moving from her house to an apartment across town, and we’ve been packing for weeks. Her psychiatrist thinks this means she’s finally coming out of isolation. But she and I know it’s merely a new phase of her particular funk.… Read the rest

Ode to Popcorn

Terms of an engagement: An ode to popcorn

I think I’ll make the popcorn on the stove
and melt a little Cabot on the side.
And if then through our pantry I do rove
I might grate us some dry jack to divide.

Though maybe the air popper is enough
for those who do not like my stinky cheese;
the butter will melt smoothly in the trough
that sits above the greatest blast of heat.

But understand this now my love. I’ll give
up Roquefort, Camembert, and even Brie.
But pop  me no corn in that monster. Dine
alone if you engage that dread machine.… Read the rest