Autobiographical Note

George Mills

A brat who kept his mouth
shut until age three,
I probably enjoyed
the family's smodering anxiety.
One day beside Lake Erie I said

     The black boat on the beach
     is the best boat on the beach.

I'm plagued now by an oracular tone
and tendency to perfect rhyme.

If I had it to do again,
I'd say shit
and watch as mother
writes the word
inside a coronet of roses
on a page of my memory book,
then turns to father--

"I think he's tell us
that truth is evely
distributed throughout the body."


Copyright ©1998 The estate of George Mills. All rights reserved.


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