Poetry Growing Up
for Nancy Levine and Bill Slaughter
When you were young
didn't you ever want to be
William Carlos Williams
without going through med school?
Didn't you ever want to be Rimbaud
without getting shot by Verlaine?
Didn't you ever want to be Dylan
without going to Juarez
and getting lost in the rain?
Sometimes, but mostly
I just wanted
to be Wallace Stevens,
get an insurance license,
write with elegance,
and eat oranges
in a sunny chair.
Oranges Lorca and I,
together by the balustrades,
would peel apart
and share.
April 26, 2017