MY FIRST RIFF

AN APOLOGY

Sorry
I told them your secret
but it was chittering in my brain, and
itching in my abdomen like
         suppressed laughter, yearning
to be drained out.
Sorry, I apologize,
but the opalescence of
all their startled then mirthful eyes, gazing
on me, as I was telling it, felt
so good
and
as I was spilling it out, every
              precious detail,
I even thought once of your
  desperate, brown intent face
as you imparted it to me
        as we walked
in that cloudy, puddle-filled day.
Sorry
it felt so maliciously wonderful, though,
so deliciously exhilarating
   I can't even regret it
I hope you'll understand.

This was my first published poem, written when I was sixteen. It was published in some teen magazine called Young Generation (I think my teacher sent it in), and later in Acta Victoriana, a mostly undergrad mag put out by Victoria College, University of Toronto. Interesting thing is, I still like the poem. I think I would take out "an" from the title, but that's as it was published then. As I said a couple of posts back, this was a riff -- modeled loosely on the idea of the William Carlos Williams poem below. (I think it was done in class...) Fellow classmates asked me what the secret was about, and couldn't believe it when I told them the incident was out of my imagination: I was obviously drawing on some similar experience, but I myself can't remember what it was.


THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicioius
so sweet
and so cold