mmccxvi

If Dr. Henenberg had been

the Chair of the Poetry Department
(does such a department exist?  I
admit I don't even know.), rather 
than the Chair of the Theater

Department.  Let’s say.  And if I,

the overly-confident and determined

undergraduate junior, had made an

appointment with her, and on that 
appointed hour had then walked 
into her office with the pro-
clamation that my one true goal

above all other goals in my life

was to someday pen a poem that

would someday find its way into a

very important compendium of the

sort that is often touted as a

compendium that houses

several very important works

(of this or that poetic nature), 
well,     I can hear her say to me 
as if it were this precise moment:

        “But young man,

what do you know of Poetry?”

She’d know, of course,

that I had been a chemistry

major for the previous two

years.  “What you’re telling me

certainly isn’t Poetry.  Talk to me

about Poetry.  You must most

certainly know that you are not

reciting for me a Poem.  No.

What you’re telling me now is

nothing but a silly & ultimately
penniless dream.”  And she’d 
bite this part off through

teeth that are clenching the

spindly end of one of the

thin, golden, ear-hugging arms 
of those Ben Franklin specs,

“And it’s not a very 
effective dream,
I might insert.”