whiffenpoof
the North American Review once ran Henry James like Dickens
because Harper wanted a trial balloon
its reader having rejected the treatment
dictated to a typist
and when it finally published the book
Harper that is
with some revisions
it switched two chapters with no-one the wiser
as I can the scene in memory like a Hollywood producer
I don’t know any mind like yours
whiffenpoof for a gambol
in the City of Light
holding up one finger at a time
to signify the loss of indeterminacy
~ Christopher Mulrooney
Christopher Mulrooney has written poems in echolocation, Vanitas, Guernica, Beeswax, The Delinquent and fourW.
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