If Jarrell Could

by George Drew

Were he here and in his softly Boston-accented voice
demanding I defend such blatant disregard
for simple logic, I’d no doubt argue that
if Jarrell could have a dead ball turret gunner
speaking in his famous poem then by God
I could speak to a dead man, too. Point taken,

I know he’d say, and behind his typically Sixties
black-rimmed glasses smile in that deftly ironic
way of his, letting me know by God Jarrell’s poem
was one he’d introduced me to. Were he here—
but he’s not, and I have no real reason to talk
to him. Dead is dead, and he’s been dead for years.

This aside, and as he made clear so many times
with his red pen on my rough drafts, something
has to follow any “but,” for every “only this”
an “except that.” Well then, though he made me
struggle like the turtle crossing the highway oh
so slowly in The Grapes of Wrath, and in the hell

between my first low B and final glorious A
made me learn how to write rather than babbling
on like one of those silly Romantic brooks
when I should have been listening to his talk
on style according to Strunk & White, he
made me know how much I cared. Dead is dead,