The Anxiety of Influence (9/02)

Is there not time enough
more than enough time
to press a delete key
to cross a line out
or stet first thoughts
or attend some convention
where you get a prize
just like you do
at a sidewalk art show
among the seascapes
and the still-lives?
And there’s your still-life.
And isn’t it beautiful too,
a bowl of fruit, a teddy,
incongruous, but striking.
I was hit between the eyes
among the grandmothers
and ministers with hobbies –
and how they’re still at it,
daubing print dresses
and empty surfaces! And oops!
they’ve mastered boats
and buoys and weathered shacks
with icicles and trees
that cannot be identified
in all nature’s unbound book.