more, amour

LOVE SONG (SMELT)

When I say 'you' in my poems, I mean you.
I know it’s weird: we barely met.
You must hear this all the time, being you.

That night we were at opposite ends of
the long table, after the pungent
Russian condiments, the carafes of tarragon vodka,

the chafing dishes full of boiled smelts
I was a little drunk: after you left,
I ate the last smelt off your dirty plate.

- Dan Chiasson, from Natural History

c/o Knopf Poetry/Random House's "The Borzoi Reader"

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