Sheffer Warmup 6/26


The editors tell you, send us your best
work, roundhouse punchy riffs. Bags
line their hallways, nearly audible baa
as gofers pass, out the door for aloe,
anything not to slit another envelope
sifted with dry powder, s'more ague,
another ardent poem who cannot act.
Well-heeled wannabes try Barcelona,
Roma, Prague. You watch bumblebees
in three hues suck lavender nectar.
Impetuous flitters, they ignore your
patient attention. One ducks in and out
from mauve foxglove, Bartholomew
Cubbins in miniature. Are you two?
You've booked passage on a freighter
but it's too late to discover yourself
exotic in a far port. Another girl with
glamorous ambitions who will not do
the work. The Kerala produce counter
stocks basil, carrots, bunched cilantro.
Its fragrance clings to fingers, lines
your pores. You want to be remade
but you don't know into what. Poems
bleat oddly from beside your chair.