The Cover of Poetry Magazine, July/August 2007

Welcome to our OETRY.
Notice there is no "P" in it.
Please keep it that way.

Printers' Ball Broken Up by Police

They enter wearing poem-proof vests.
Each is armed with a Poetry Magazine
totebag. In close formation
they swarm the free tables for copies of Make
and Stop Smiling. The chorus
of pixies falls silent. Smokers
are escorted to the loading dock.
No more free half-hot dogs with everything
for you, I'm afraid. We flee
wearing nothing but hard hats and suspenders.
But still the door won't
close. Disperse, they say, disperse,
like clouds in a cloudless sky.