Instance of Me
By Gail Mazur
Hot hot hot, you are hot, Sun,
Glaring all over my east window
Burning, beaming, yellowing
The room. Uninterested in me
Because I'm not Mayakovsky
Although I feel you insisting
I wake, that I produce right now
Or perish as my uncle used to say.
Brave Mayakovsky, doomed Mayakovsky,
He could sass you, and later O'Hara
(Before they turned forty, both gone)
Sassed you and sassed Mayakovsky, too—
But when I try I know it's just another
Instance of me whistling in the dark,
Me not blazing, me not burning out.
Copyright Credit: Gail Mazur, "Instance of Me" from Forbidden City. Copyright © 2016 by The University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Source: Forbidden City (The University of Chicago Press, 2016)