i’m going to write a poem about a baby
the baby looks like its mother’s mother &
nothing like its
father
except when he’s playing a riff
from yellow ledbetter on his little baby guitar
he is charming in the way
that he could be a little baby model like the ones on the shrunken
mason jars
wearing his birthday suit
like a little baby salesman
the baby will learn
how to chain smoke
at an early age
and hold down a full-time job
he’ll be the only kid
in the first grade
who can crack open a PBR
with his little baby teeth
and his teachers will be very impressed
i'll start a savings account for him
so i can send him to college to meet girls or pay his way out of jail for getting accused of something
he might’ve really done
but for christ’s sake
he is just a baby
it’s difficult to think
of such lofty aspirations so soon
i'll just hold him for now
and hum burl ives like somebody did for me
forever ago
he’ll grow up
and i'll grow old
we will both forget
this very moment
but for very different reasons
my mind will begin to fade
like a sad ghost and the people who knew me
as a baby
will be long gone
life will be fuller in some areas
unbearable in others
i'll hope the baby visits me
at the hospital
says something nice
at my funeral
lives a long adventurous life
and always remembers
he is the boxer
not the bag
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