You Have to Know What to Do
Robert Beveridge

We dive-bombed the fish market,

offered to trade sexual favors

for pork cutlets. Acted surprised

when told pork is not a fish: “have we

done Lent wrong all this time?” We hunted

wild geese in clock towers, random odors

in dusty college hallways. Never found

the source of that pomegranate scent

that pervaded History, 2nd floor.

There is never enough dust in the world

to allow you to cling like a window-film,

so we went our separate ways. You masqueraded

as the failed logo for a sports team perennially

in last place; I searched, forever and ever, amen,

for the last living conger eel in Choctaw, Michigan.

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Robert Beveridge’s Comments

Sometimes they just spring, Athena-like, fully formed from your cranium. I can’t even begin to tell you where all of this comes from, save having lived in the Midwest for nigh on 30 years now and having it ingrained in my bones that the Tigers are the butt of every baseball joke in America. (And that revelation came two or three years after I wrote this.)

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