Published on: 1/13/2015
Where's the Poet (Now)?

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
&emdash; Keats

A young woman in a yellow dress
feeds a red potato chip
to a squirrel &emdash;brown, white, gray &emdash;
on a wide expanse of emerald lawn.
Is the potato chip nourishing
for the squirrel? woman? lawn?
Is this a poem? Am I included,
seated on a bench, old, blue, gray?

Dogs, bikes, cigarettes,
coffee, litter, buzz tops
in the East Village
where I wait at a bus stop,
standing beside a bench marked
"For customers only."
Shall I sit? Blue again, still old,
gray again, am I occluded?

Take a bite, take a cup.
Take a poem, and scarf it up!