A KIND OF FATE FOR YOUR POEMS

Sappho’s poems were stuffed into the mouths of mum­mi­fied croc­o­diles
& yours will lie there & get dusty until some land­lord has them
removed for ren­o­va­tion & thrown into a dump­ster where some poet
will find them & cut them up & use them for what­ever they’re worth
– a joke — in the cur­rent market of poetry or recent satire
& yours will be found neatly wrapped in red rib­bons & cher­ished
until one day you will be dis­cov­ered, sister, by the New York Times
Book Review & you will be famous for one Sunday
& yours will be bound & stud­ied & some future stu­dent of
poetry will sing your praises in a poetry work­shop of the future
& every­one will marvel at how neglected but great you are & yours
will be that way too & yours & yours & yours & yours & mine will
never move or be lifted or copied or read they will just be in
space remain­ing still the field where no one walks & birds listen

(c) 2003 by Stephen Spicehandler

from Drenched, Selected Poems of Susan Cataldo, Tele­phone Books.