Steven Croft

To: Ernest in Purgatory / From: Steve in Key West

Your ego heavy and staggering, there was that time
you punched Wallace Stevens down into a puddle
over on Waddell Street, fist defending pen, after
his literary slight — you hung your marlin down at
the wharf, so tourists could marvel at the exploits
of Papa — if you could pass a letter through Peter,
even the Infinite One might be impressed, let you
ascend (your writing is why we love you, always will)
but the Saint can't be bribed like Pilar (for the right
reasons, to save Maria), so there you remain, hard-
drinker, faithless husband, American letters' boastest
with the mostest (until James Dickey came along to
try your rep, maybe best you — say Hi to Jim for me) --
That time in the second war (despite your famous novel
of the first) you raced ahead of the Third Army to Paris,
tossed a grenade into a basement nest of SS, took
command of the village's French Resistance for days,
lied to the Third Army's later inquiry into your
contraventions of the Genera Conventions — and there
were many — by taking up arms as a wartime journalist --
the officers officially accepted your denials, unofficially
wished they could give you a medal — yes, you killed,
but for arguably good reasons — Here, at your house,
the docent says, "Don't pick up the cats," then emphasizes,
"Don't pick up the cats" — fifteen minutes later, I pick one
up, calmly pinch its jaw hinges to free a green lizard into a
bush — the cat now follows me everywhere, swishing
between my legs — now that they can't be held your
cats especially miss you, you who could love so grandly
when you loved — I am here — a cat's tail figuring my
legs — rooting for you there — we all are.

 

Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia where his yard is lush with vegetation.  His work has appeared in The James Dickey Review, San Pedro River Review, So It Goes, Anti-Heroin Chic, Misfit Magazine, Poets Reading the News, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.