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Past Poems of the Week:

"At the Gym" from SOURCE by Mark Doty

"Prayer" from NEVER by Jorie Graham

"I Am Cinematographer" from TREMOLO by Spencer Short

 

FLORIDA POEMS
Campbell McGrath
Ecco Press
Poetry
ISBN: 0060008962

 

Hemingway Dines on Boiled Shrimp and Beer

I'm the original two-hearted brawler.
I gnaw the scrawny heads from prawns,
pummel those mute, translucent crustaceans,
wingless hummingbirds, salt-water spawned.
As the Catalonians do, I eat the eyes at once.
My brawny palms flatten their mainstays.
I pop the shells with my thumbs, then crunch.

Just watch me as I swagger and sprawl,
spice-mad and sated, then dabble in lager
before I go strolling for stronger waters
down to Sloppy Joe's. My stride as I stagger
shivers the islands, my fingers troll a thousand keys.
My appetite shakes the rock of the nation.
The force of my fiction makes the mighty Gulf Stream.

 

Excerpted from FLORIDA POEMS © Copyright 2002 by Campbell McGrath. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.

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