A Talk With the Twentieth Century Man
For Christopher Kain
You wonder if the bar has coffee
as you drink water. It’s the first time
you can remember doing this, even when
you’ve been designated driver.
He drinks slowly, talks slower,
as he ponders your question
on being immortal.
Is it better than being prolific?
He can’t say. His poem-a-year strategy
was to make each pen jab count
so he could watch his name grow in font.
be said by someone besides himself.
He wondered if it was possible
to still be immortal as just a poet.
This, he said, was the best way
to find out for himself.
Now he won’t share his secret
to his long run. It’s not worth it,
he says. For immortality, you either
have to be lucky, or work at it.
At his halfway point, he put out
a small chapbook, one hundred copies,
appropriately enough. Sold all
but one, which he kept for himself.
Aside from his copy, thrown out
in a range, and one lost to
a washed out town, he was able
to buy all of them back, cheap.
He hopes before they were thrown
to the used book stores that there
were people who found comfort
in one of his pieces, even his favorite.
He won’t tell you his favorite.
He’s many things, but not a jinx.
Hey, he says ,do you want a copy?
Knowing the answer, he holds it out.
Letterpress, no less. He still prefers that
to computer printing, though he likes that too.
He's glad you found a way to look him up.
Just because you’re alive, doesn’t mean
anyone knows who you are. No one knows
that better than a poet, immortal or not.
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