Margaret Dornaus

Love Letter to a Dead Poet

Everyone loved you. Even those you made it your business to cow: bullying them with that voice that could fill three football fields; that linebacker’s body; those eyes that could spark a smoldering fire. You loved posturing. Dressing in the cabled threads of an Irish fisherman’s sweater. The frock coat and string tie of a country singer. Holding court over pliable minds with one Socratic wave of your cigarette. Postulating theories as if they were facts. Peppering language with expletives meant to shock anyone not prepared to do battle with the fretted words of Dickey & Welty, O’Connor & Faulkner—Southern icons whose secret handshakes we learned to covet as much as God’s singular electrifying touch.

you said I danced
like a periodic
sentence . . .
it’s true enough
is never enough