Academy of American Poets Prize Award Runner-Up

It is 7:48 in the Bronx and I am hoping Galway

Kinnell can just live until December 9 at

the 92nd Street Y where he will try to recite

some poems from memory old man’s mind

faltering      audience shifting      embarrassed.

ah! I think I’m going crazy      I bought two

tickets already (nineteen each) and I know

the day he croaks my boyfriend won’t fuck

me because he stands on the roof when poets

expire      fuck—me: I don’t even pout       I

just like

get to thinking how it’s time        I dunno

to produce something my fat editor will

finally print     something akin to        I dunno

reading Allen in the night when I’m feverish

in cold water baths and five stories up

wondering if I’m any good or not

and stealing is the best option    really     if

I could steal everything and let dead men

shoulder the anxious weight of my brevity

and never have to see the gaping horror

I would.

O Galway

O Kinnell

don’t die