shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Peggy Turnbull


 

Romantic Youth

We all admired Pablo—read his poems
to one another in sunny Sunday bedrooms,
or on benches overlooking foggy lakes.
We cheered his name at concerts
where Chileans in wool ponchos
played indigenous flutes and drums.
We didn't know about his abandoned daughter,
the rape he regretted in his memoir.

In a choice between poem or poet,
we loved the poet, took lovers like him,
who bit our lips and dumped us at dawn.
Oh poetry! How patiently you waited
until we learned that the fire aglow in us
burned hotter from words
than from worshipping heroes.