Henry’s Edmund Fitzgerald

Henry had a wreck
in his pickup truck,
bumper gone,

radiator leaking,
fenders crunched.
If the poem

hadn’t been wearing
a seatbelt,
it might have lost

a couplet.
There was wreckage
scattered everywhere,

it was
a languishing poem
waiting to happen.

Henry got out
of his truck
swearing in yiddish,

or kaddish.
Hell, Ann Marie has appropriated
all them fancy words

so Henry’s wreck
is devoid of them,
except for this tailgate,

as in you’ll have
to put the “tailgate” down
if you want to see it---

two lines of poetry
fighting
to be last.