I knew a guy
did nothing well.
Not term paper or piano
or the relay run. At all
he was inept, and vowed
to stop doing and become
the Perfect Audience that doers need.
But his father died and gave him stocks,
and he moved to San Francisco, got a
trophy princess he despised, and hated
those who could be hurt.
Not the Perfect Audience.
I know a woman in Chicago
picks up pieces others drop
or never see: light on a shade,
a wild aunt’s stole, crows by the
rest home, unregarded fallen
pieces of others, and puts them
in her magic woven baskets.
She knows where the werewolves live
under the streets of known things.
Under the single star of a starting night,
under Mary of the Gaels,
or a father’s attention,
or a heron’s glance in another direction.
She goes down there like a bag lady,
opens gates for them, feeds them
forms and glory from her baskets
though they bite her hands a lot. A lot.
Is that the Perfect Audience, or what?
