Michael Casey’s latest book is There It Is: New & Selected Poems, which is available at loompress.com or amazon.com. He lives in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts. 

Remembrance

.

a pretty girl on my street

wanted to be a writer

and was taking

home economic courses

because

women are not allowed to write

chip  shoulder  on

about anything else

I tried at that time

to tell her

that the serious cash

was in poetry

and I remember somewhat later

driving to downtown Lowell

and there she was

at the bus stop

Pine Street and Westford

did I forget to mention she grew up

on my street

in Lowell

and there she

I offered her a ride

and  you know

just by happenstance then

I happened to have

on the passenger seat

a copy of a national magazine

The Nation

with my poetry in it

now just recently The Nation

once again accepted my work

forty-five years on

I am on a rolling sphere currently

and the girl

all she has is only

one book of short stories

and one book of essays

and eleven novels

movie options for one of those

and that’s about it

.

–Michael Casey