She said wear some of those comfy
pants to your next poetry reading.

I said if you see me in those pants
make like a scared poacher –

shoot first, then run to the car.
She said shame on you to me.

(She said shame on me). Poets
she reckoned were an endangered

species. I said enraged species
more like. Told her to step outside,

the bloody city is crawling with
them. A zombie apocalypse of

distracted thought in clipped wee
lines. That’s the real bloody pandemic!