Dear David by Matthew Burgess

February 17, 2015   Dear David   Matthew Burgess

This morning I looked for your book online and almost bought it from the evil giant but balked. Instead I wrote a poem in bed about a faux-leopard jacket while drinking coffee from a Bette Midler mug. Marcel says when he catches himself self-censoring he knows to add it anyway. Anyway I scrambled eggs before rearranging my book shelves, extracting the ones I can live without. Those I put in a box for prisoners (who want dictionaries and classic fiction, the website says) and later the buyer in Red Hook took a towering stack for a seventeen buck credit. I skimmed the spines and there you were! Like new! On the cover in blue pants, a violet plaid shirt, surrounded by bright particulars!            Copyright © 2015 by Matthew Burgess. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “This poem is a transcript of a recent Sunday, a note written and sent to its recipient on the spot. But it is also about books and serendipity, and the real possibility that the poetry gods favor alternative modes of exchange.” —Matthew Burgess   Matthew Burgess is the author ofSlippers for Elsewhere (UpSet Press, 2014). He teaches at Brooklyn College and is a poet-in-residence in New York City elementary schools with Teachers & Writers Collaborative. He lives in Brooklyn. Most Recent Book by Burgess   Slippers for Elsewhere (UpSet Press, 2014) "Anything Can Happen" by Seamus Heaney "Books" by Gerald Stern "Book Loaned to Tom Andrews" by Bobby C. Rogers Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006,Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.