A RESPONSE 5 [A Poem Revisited]

you don't need to say my name in your poems:
i'll know which ones are about me,
and for those about which i am unsure

i will ask
(even though you probably wish that i would just read it
and nod my head and go "uh-huh" and leave it at that,

but you know me).
besides, if i want to hear my name, i will ask you for it
(but it will be muffled under our bodies).

and i will always be i regardless of I things

as to keep my head from swelling up

which you—or your speaker—says it does

so often.

someone is none of my concern

for i know that you are one and i am one

and together we make two;

but we are together, so that makes one.

our ones make two which makes one.

does that make sense?

i'm not the one who's good with numbers:

you clip coupons and return bottles

while i vote for politicians who will do all that

for me

(isn't democracy so keen?).

we both know you will do no such skewing of which you speak—

you know well what you are doing, where you are going; you know that i

am left-handed.

i don't think poetry fits on a scatter plot

despite what we both learned in our respective

Introduction to Poetry courses.