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.