Ron Padgett lives!
I spent a half-hour looking for you, browsing
the poetry crypt of the local bookstore.
Dusty shelves, Bukowski, Eliot, Ginsberg, O’Hara . . .
but you weren’t there, only the dead poets.
“May I be of some assistance, sir?”
He spoke with the perfect pronunciation
and accent of the Queen’s English.
His hair short, shiny, black neatly parted
on the side, he wore round wire rimmed
bifocal glasses and dressed with a bow tie
and cardigan.
He was a living caricature, a British bookworm
lost on Long Island.
“I’m looking for New and Selected Poems
by Ron Padgett.”
“It’s Pa-jzay.”
“No, it’s Padgett.”
He rolled his eyes and turned to the computer.
“It’s Pa-jzay.”
I wanted to tell him
I had studied your work.
I wanted to tell him
I met you at a reading.
But, then
I thought of our mutual friend
Woody Woodpecker
and wished he were there to teach
this cartoon character a lesson.
“I’m sorry we don’t have it, but you can
place a special order.”
“Not right now,” I replied.
So, I went home and ordered
your book online, at least
I could assume that you were
still alive.
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