To Doctor Joe Ofalt
To Doctor Joe Ofalt
Joseph Hargraves
Last night, while taking turns
giving each other oral
vocabulary tests, you said
a sycophant is what you are
in relation to me. I laughed.
I had never once thought of you
as an obsequious toady
to my obdurate tendentiousness.
And when you remarked that
it was “chilling that between us,
with our genius IQs,†we
couldn’t define “psephology,â€
felicitousness settled upon me.
I was grateful that neither of us
was laconic, or taciturn, but
very loquacious. “Queeny,’
would be your definition of us
laughing about onomatopoeia
and Sapphic verse form.
You then said, “Don’t write
another one of your internecine-
romance poems or I won’t be able,
and I mean literally able,
to be your friend.†So Joe,
how many poets do you know
who in their hubris would take
the advice of an abject flatterer
(as I have in this poem) by not writing
of paramours, but of you
my hilarious and beloved friend?
Really, ‘psephology’ should not be a word, if you think about. Still, this poem still helped me cry myself to sleep. Thank you.
Literate graffiti scrawled on the surface of a narcissist’s mirror which is, for the humor of the observant, strangely pointed out and away from the face it is intended to deface…