Donald Revell
Stoic

My soul is a mind and a meander, a Mrs. Luxe.

Little Spartan boy, release the animal in your shirt!

It isn’t a wolf cub, it’s a puppy, soon

To be Lassie, and she’s needed

For the invasion of Norway, that disastrous offensive.

  

Her parachute opens.

A minute or so later,

Her paws touch delicately down

Onto the glacier, and instantly

The ice turns a radiant deep sky blue

Wherever she goes.  Peter Lawford

Is rescued and returns to England.

Lassie remains behind,

Changing every inch of the arctic earth into blue sky

Which is becoming my mind.

  

My soul has turned from now to then.

It’s all a luxury, this being alive.

Read me that woman’s poetry, I’m watching King Kong.

There’s an animal up my sleeve, and it’s killing me.

 
Found In Volume 34, No. 03
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Donald Revell
About the Author

Donald Revell is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Arcady (Wesleyan, 2002), winner of the PEN Center USA Award, and My Mojave (Alice James, 2003), winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets.  His most recent book is Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems (Alice James, 2005).