METOPE, TAGALOG, RASKOLNIKOV
And to all the others, read but never or too late heard
Words and names I’ve mispronounced
Over the years
I apologize most sincerely
And for your prompt and scholarly corrections
Offered so generously strictly in the interests of accuracy
Without regard for circumstance or company
As language demands of course
O my tireless erstwhile tutors —
Beginning with hip Sister Margaret
Who played Leonard Co-HEN for us
And especially you dear colleague M.
Fond of referring with the utmost assurance
To Hilliard’s seminal minitures —
I ask humbly of whoever is in charge of such matters
That when you die you return to this earth circa 1012
In the person of Tang Su
Who while dining at the court of the Emperor
Laid down his chopsticks pointing east rather than west
And so was dragged by his hair from the chambers
Into seventeen years of penal solitude
In the freezing dust-choked provinces
Where he gobbled pig-slop with his fingers
And even the chickens
Turned in disgust their thin faces from him
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DANIEL LAWLESS‘s poems have recently appeared in The Meadow, Cortland Review, PIF, SN Review, Adirondack Review, and Ampersand Review. He is the founder and editor of Plume.
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Read more by Daniel Lawless:
Poem in The Cortland Review
Poem in PIF
Poem in SN Review
Poem in Prick of the Spindle