End of the red paradeby
virtuamikeComment by posthumous: Poetic Transference
for Philip Levine
Of all your old poet's stories,
the emperor who was a footstool,
the pig who knows he will die,
it is my own I keep giving to you,
like a more obscure piece
only the winking fanatics would know.
Maybe I wanted your breath
in the break of each line, or a folded, stapled
cover I could close.
Without even knowing
what you look like,
I cannot forget the day
you recited it:
the rain, the confetti and balloons in the gutter,
how I almost drowned there in that lie.
by Don Zirilli
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