Who Waits, Who Runs by Robin Stout

  Daido Moriyama, Stray Dog, Misawa, Aomori, 1971  

Robin Stout / Who Waits Who Runs

You say

I am too happy

to be a poet.

You, you ubiquitous

you.

Floating in and out,

in and out

of my poems

like clouds in a blue,

blue sky.

You say

my pain

is more frightened

lamb than wounded

lion.

That I am low

on ink.

And, besides

I don’t dress

right.

That’s what you know.

I am the guy on Atlantic

Avenue with apricot

hair.  I am

the swollen

river, the fifteen-

dollar sandwich.

I am the woman

in head-to-toe

black on a coral

street.

I am the car

stuck

in traffic.

I am the dog

who waits

who runs up

behind you

and sinks

yellow teeth

into the meatiest

part of your

thigh.




(c) Robin Stout 2011