Mark Ostrowski

Mark Ostrowski can be reached at mostrow@lander.es. An expat, one gets the impression.

NATURAL BORN CRITIC

my French poet friend named s.

shivers

off to the pissoir

the Dindurra ignores

hairline cracks in marble

several hours remain

before the chess players and

the vermouth drinkers

arrive

it took me a while to pull that

trigger

but I pulled it

now I collect his e-mails, hoping

for a compilation

it was a bad thing, meeting this poet

he gets his work done

earns 30 thou for a reading

40 thou for

a commemorative poem

I know when s. gets back from the can

he is going to be relaxed

yet at times

he struggles

gets nervous

because life can indeed

get rough

in the absence of

translations

workshops

but these moments are

strictly off the record

very reminiscent

of Carver’s

last words

about tenderness

s. must be in a bad way to take this long

I cant understand why he doesn’t

do like Neruda

and assert

that he too has a right to be happy

I grow impatient with s.

this wouldn’t be the first time he didn’t make it

back

I pay the bill for both and

leave a few extra coins

for our waiter —he knows exactly

how long to wait

before calling

an ambulance.

Mark Ostrowski