On a nameless lake
north of Nipigon
I saw a creature

up in the crown
of a burnt-out jack pine
watching me wonder:

should I go on, into the opening
cleared by the fire, or return?
I stayed at the edge,

half in the open,
afraid of a windigo;
I must have turned back

and paddled in,
over spruce bogs,
across Black Sturgeon Lake;

I must have come in,
tell me you saw me
come in.

closed your eyes & I imagined
how You felt;  the itch of the sun,
the thirsty breeze & My sating gaze

You looked so beautiful  ,  then  ,
quenched by    love & wanting,
flowered&budding a new meaning
of what it is to just Be,so perfectly

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet