A Poetry Reading
we met at a poetry event
one person reading Ted Hughes
another Sylvia Plath
in tense conversation
we fell for each other
through those words
make love poetically
like a hummingbird
sipping nectar from a pink flower
getting drunk on it
every single day
quieter in her public life
she’s emotionally volatile in her verbiage
often dazzling
she recently sang to me
putting on her best Carly Simon
sneering and crooning
you’re so vain
you probably think this poem is about you
don’t you?, don’t you?, don’t you?
but it is about me
I know it is
nearly all her poems
since we met
are about her, me, or us
how she was, who I am, what we’ll be
though my poems cover more ground
she’s the finer poet
with more depth, nuance, feeling
wordsmithing like a wizard
and I love her for it
more with each poem
even when she hates herself
*
Dan Brook teaches in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University, from where he organizes the Hands on Thailand program. His most recent books are Harboring Happiness: 101 Ways To Be Happy (Beacon, 2021), Sweet Nothings (Hekate, 2020), about the nature of haiku and the concept of nothing, and Eating the Earth: The Truth About What We Eat (Smashwords, 2020).
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