Paul Doty
Flu Season
Influenza this year is a snow storm blowing through storm windows
chills shake like I'm riding surreptitiously in an Airstream trailer
behind a red Studebaker Rambler slowly going over Route 2 weak
with frost heaves north of North Hero. Overmuch with myself from
sneezing I am reading Yvor Winters and want to proclaim the
man a Romantic-there is Byron in his clarity, Wordsworth in his eye.
Wrapped in his California he'd hate that, write briefly about it,
and California classicist thick sour and convincing mend where
time won't-good advice is bad habits spiked and sweated,
have I taken Winters medicine?
Bio
Paul Doty is a Reference Librarian at St. Lawrence University, and has served in this capacity for 16 years. Before joining the staff at St. Lawrence he was a Reference Librarian at the University of Wisconsin Superior, and the University of Utah. He resides in Canton, New York with his wife and youngest daughter, a house full of books, and a garage full of canoes. Paul has published essays or poems in publications such as the Reference Librarian, The Leaflet, The FODYLL Bulletin, Mississippi Review, Stone Canoe, Cortland Review, and Rootdrinker.