This morning I noticed one of our old textbooks on the shelf. Skimming through it I found a few poems that had left their mark, but most of them were convoluted, contrived, forgettable. I wondered how I’d ever had the patience to read them, bushwhacking through wordthickets to find their meaning. Now I can tell at a glance if a poem’s worth my time; the same way I know if a deer track’s worth following or not. So I don’t read poems that make me squint, or follow tracks that won’t put meat on the table, When I tossed the book into the give-away stack the front cover fell open and I remembered why I’d hung on to it: there was your signature: Shelley Markus, a piece of art in its own right, like a Clovis point sculpted from agate, or the paintings of Lascaux, timelessly elegant, impossible to improve upon. My body tingles when I look at it just like it did the first time I saw you. You captured me without trying, or wanting to. This poem can’t poss…
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