After Camp Hill
When I see Felice I feel

the urge to write. Isn’t that funny felice?

I feel the urge. Maybe

you knew me in another life or

maybe you remind me of my life’s work

or that thing they call passion ‘find what it is

that you love and you’ll never work a day

in your life.’ how trite. like a trifle. like the meat trifle

rachel made in that thanksgiving episode of the cursed TV

show (already the subject of a poem called Monica so let’s not go

into it felice, okay?). I can’t find what i love as i love my

cats and i love bad poems and

i love using ‘bad’ words at the end of the line

the enjambment is more meaningful when you have to think

about it. think: why did you put that there, tracy brimhall?

why there, sinead morrissey? when someone says to me they love

poetry i say oh yes? My being coy

doesn’t help here because, according

to the five years i spent at university, only certain poems

are poems. the words have ruined me for other poems.

all i write now are: lists; letters; notes to self; journal entries.

journal entries. and according to michael e. gerber, weirdo, the turn-key

model changed the world but universities are not built

on keys and neither are poems. when i’m at Queens

the poets in tenure tell me my poems are too sparse and ask why

but at home in brisbane what is sparse is better—distil it Felice.

but whatever you do don’t write a bad poem and don’t

end the line in a conjunction, definite article or other useless thing. Occasionally

i write sondheim lyrics or recite

flight of the conchords—not to pretend anything—but

to harken to joy or at least to try. Felice

tell me, have you heard Meleika speak. no? well

you’re missing out.