Your First Published Novel


After a day of rain the ratchet
of jays seems desperate as your laugh.
I don’t look forward to driving

a hundred miles to shake your hand
over your first published novel;
but already the drip of the trees

assumes a cold calculation
and the chickadees at the feeder
ignore the noisy jays despite

their urgency and rage. I’ll sip
your publisher’s cheap Beaujolais
and sample the garlic canapés

and chat with graceful strangers;
but mushrooms flourish in the woods
and I’d rather pick and cook them

and spend the evening nodding
over reruns of TV programs
from the Eisenhower era

than watch the cultural elite
of Boston test your shark-smile
with cleverly ironic remarks.

The damp day blossoms. The sky
has wrung itself silly, the cries
of neighborhood dogs brittle

in the gloom. I’ll arrive with
my sense of duty intact but
don’t look too deeply into my eyes.

The hazel smog will unnerve you
the way it unnerves me whenever
I catch it in the mirror

and I don’t want your debut
to suffer from lack of nerve.
Your new public wants to love you

for your wit and your bosom,
and fueled with that awful wine
will slop over like tide pools

and will buy your book and pretend
to read if not with gusto
at least the pretense of lust.


by William Doreski




art by R. K. Sohm