Beginning

[#1]

A Poem by Linda Bamber

Today's selection from Black Sparrow Books and David R. Godine, Publisher, is from Linda Bamber's Metropolitan Tang, published in 2008.

Beginning

Some men

you give them a little wine, a little sex

a little critique of their most

basic personality issues and also

of the pornographically photographed sailboat

they currently think would vault them,

if they owned it,

to a whole new level of happiness

(which it wouldn't, not with that lopsided

helm)

and they're done. They bury their head in your midriff

crying,

"I know you! I know what a pain in the neck you are!"

Is there anything not to like about men like that?

Exactly what?

Tell me, because I don't see it.

Linda Bamber, "Beginning" from Metropolitan Tang. Copyright © (2008) by Linda Bamber.

Reprinted with the permission of Black Sparrow Books and David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston. www.blacksparrowbooks.com