Jean Follain
Some evenings a poet will turn Down a ride and walk Home from the banquet Where he was honored By members of a boat club Still feeling the roughness Of their hands in his hand As he walks in his pocket The medallion they gave him Already forgivably forgotten It will be that hour when A woman changes for dinner Before the bathroom mirror One earring in one ear The other in her hand Turning her head to hear What she thought her husband Said from the bedroom Where he stands wiping his glasses On his untucked dress shirt They don’t know that They won’t make it To dinner because they will Hit a poet on the way Though even as he is bleeding Out the poet will go on walking Invisibly along the Seine While in the restaurant where They had reservations The silverware enters the dark Of other mouths