NaPoWriMo 27

Name Dropping Poem


Joyce Carol Oates on the radio today.
I picture as I always do Joyce in car,
computer on her lap, husband at
the wheel, arriving at a friend's friend's
wedding, typing till at the last minute
her husband takes her indoors.
The interviewer trolls a long time,
reads an entire James quotation
Joyce agrees is on her bulletin board.
She's written a book of short fictional
end of life memoirs for Hemingway,
Dickinson, others, and James. Henry.
Fastidious in dress and deportment,
a man she imagines as difficult,
but who, thanks to his friend,
Edith Wharton, rolled up Europe
tailored sleeves and, amid stench,
and severed limbs,volunteered,
much as Whitman in the Civil War,
found his human best and was useful.
How has it been for you, the interviewer
asks, in the year since your husband died.
I want to reach out to her, alone in that car.