Poetry Reading

The editor wears a pear-colored suit.
I feel he should have been a baker
with a white misshapen hat,
or flour on his doughy hands.

Should anyone misspeak, be sure
they will be made to sit in the dreary
silence afterward, while thoughts of
blood-drenched battlefields pound like hooves
through the ribcages of gentle women.

The poet himself is nearly white with love,
like a thin paper pressed by oily hands
until translucent, then worried and smudged,
then torn. Restrained by his navy tie,
he speaks until hoarse. He is here,

staring out at us through watery
blue eyes. We are staring back
like a multitude of wretched squirrels,
fingering our books of poetry.

He reads the only poem that made
me twitch. It is then I know he would
rather we were all naked, or bloody,
or throwing back shots of whiskey.

He would prefer it if we bellowed
back at him all the poems he
was too scared to write, and
much too blind to feel.