She Stands by the Confederate Memorial and Smiles

A few pitchers of beer
And the afternoon slid by like the brown Oconee
As two guys hooked crappie from the sun deck
And one graduate student explained
She was a survivalist
And the time was near
To retreat into
The wilderness.
 
Her boyfriend had it
All figured out.
And did we want to come?

And the other lady with the long dress
And the nineteenth-century countenance
Was so glad to have someone
To talk to, and her eyes
Plundered our faces
Like elegant robbers
And did we have to go?

And I get the car
And there you are.

"As I sat adrowse
At my very meek board,
Why who should arouse
Me from sleep but the Lord?"

                        --Byron Herbert Reece
 
Nothing imperative, I just thought
I'd talk to you about this.
So I did.

Samuel is in his canasta
By my desk.  He gets up with me
Before daylight.

After he has had
His breakfast, he'd like
To go back to bed,
But the door is closed
(He always checks),
So he jumps in his basket
And does the best he can.
And soon he is asleep,
Usually with his legs in the air.

And I drink my coffee
And decide what to do next.
How to phrase my way
Through time, you know,
And all of that.

I didn't mention,
Though I should have,
That when my chair squeaks,
His ears move, even when he's asleep.
Talk about faithful.

Good boy, Sammy.
Samuel, good boy.

In Shakespeare’s sonnets, a plain simplicity
Fences with its opposite, a complex vision,
More narrow, more conscientious in decision,
Wiser, feebler, with a more prudent clarity,
Cooler, inept to wrest the loosened reins
From demented passion in emergencies,
Safer to trust—when one must—but a disease
To all the satisfactions it detains.
It is the other which concerns us most,
Of course, for here it comes, that fog of sorts
That engages, enrages, tantalizes, contorts
The prepared identities we used to boast
Were integrated parts of our destined roles,
And passionate destiny shoots them full of holes.