The Favored

By David Rivard

(posted Wednesday, Aug. 6)

To hear the poet read "The Favored," click here.

In the dream that repeats as certain
as dusk you walk with me
again as it happens strolling by

yards of quiet or clamoring families.
Affable street, & nothing accidental
here, so it makes sense

I like the people we pass by thinking
the sunglasses I wear
mean me a blind man.

Always you grip a white second-hand paperback.
I can almost smell the spine's
cracked glue as you read

aloud. Pulp--
narrated by a foolish minor princeling
or gypsy tinker, his eyes aquamarine,

squinting through venetian shades into
the bedroom of a scullery maid/dominatrix/police detective
who offers to straddle

the plantation master/diplomat/dope dealer's head
as he lies there on the floor,
the enticements of her taffeta, spandex, musk,