by Lynn Patrick Smith

This is the Poem You’ve Been Waiting to Hear

unless you were thinking it would rhyme
and say nice things about
my mother, my wife, or my childhood
which I did capture, beautifully metered,
in my Pleasant Suburban Childhood poem
that I left at home because
the last time I took it out in public
it ran off and got drunk with that
gang of Miserable Urban Childhood poems
and said things about me
I cannot repeat in the poem
you were hoping I would read.
So, instead I offer you this.

Just imagine me reciting whatever poem
it is you’ve been waiting to hear.


-originally appeared in These Little Scenes,
Fireweed Press, 2006, by Lynn Patrick Smith.