ALUMNI #97

As if I were looking over Ohio
as a little boy
& I could hold a newspaper

with a story about me in it
& on that fifth page
of the Arts

& Leisure section,
those two hundred words
would all be about how

I never left Ohio,
how I graduated in Ohio
& taught in Ohio

& spoke truth to power in Ohio,
would that little boy dance
with the momentum

of a star moving out of cluster? 
Would he rejoice
in his adult self?

Of course not.  That boy
wanted to play baseball forever.
This man found other innings

& the outs I’ve accumulated
are something
I’m very, very proud of.

ALUMNI #98

Let the benediction pearl
in my stomach.  Let it be
value when they open me up.

ALUMNI #99

The torture is
that I didn’t drink enough
to forget a single drink

& those hundred-beer weeks
in college should have
given me that gift.

I should have no guilt.
My blood should have
moved me past all of that.

NUDE MALE WITH ECHO #196

The night sky is
what I say it is.

That is a bad poem
written by a man.