ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 4
MY PRIZES MY AWARDS MY HONORS
that reading those decades ago
after which an old woman came up to me
and said she was glad my poems had silos in them
young people need to write poems
with silos in them
to my horror Dad told me he'd shown
the poem about an older relative
that detailed the comical scandal of his life
to my cousin the man's daughter
but then he told me it made her laugh
that she loved it because she had loved him
that younger poet who corrected me
when I complained that the only thing
people in town remembered me for was a poem I wrote
quickly and mostly for amusement twenty years before:
"it's an honor that they should still like it"
me, ashamed: "of course you're right"