dear pa and ma

my father like Edgar Allan
Poe
and my mother liked The
Saturday Evening Post
and she died first
the priest waving smoking
incense above her
casket
and my father followed
a year or so later
and in that purple velvet coffin
his face looked like ice
painted yellow

my father never liked
what I wrote: "people
don't want to read this
sort of thing."

"yes, Henry," said my
mother, "people like to
read things that make
them happy."

they were my earliest
literary critics
and
they both were
right.