I hate getting to the spot, making talk in the Green Room, going on. —Robert Lowell, from an interview
I sat alone with him before the reading:
shy, awed by this big man who opened up
a black spring binder, probably the draft
of Day by Day, and marked and cut and scratched
with a red ball-point pen on typed-up sheets.
My teacher had appointed me to guard him,
just in case he had a mental breakdown
and tried to wander off. But he kept writing,
or re-writing, on pages that looked bloody
with crossing out and cramped, inserted words.
I didn’t say a thing, but kept on watching.
So I was startled, sitting at a distance,
when suddenly he looked up, smiled, and said,
“That’s a nice, green, corduroy jacket.”
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