Poem for Jim Cummins ["Riverboat Gamble" by David Lehman]

"Darwin predicted you," Jim Cummins said.
"You're in the theory." His assailant fled.

People clapped. They wanted Jim to make a speech.
"My subject is Cincinnati," he said. "Do I dare to eat a peach?"

Into the room flew the fly, humming. "Place your bets."
"Shall we gamble everything on red?" Jim asked. I said, "Let's"

It was a hot day in the Queen City.
Pitching for the Reds was Walter Matthau playing Walter Mitty.

When Jim got audited by the IRS, he cursed.
"It was like having an autopsy while alive. First things first." 

A world-class wise ass, he volunteered to prepare my tax return.
I pretended to do a slow burn.

But I didn't mind. If life was a Riverboat Gamble, you could count me in.
Jim nodded. It was exactly as predicted by Darwin.

-- 4 / 5 / 03

Note on the poem: That month David Shapiro and I were exchanging 14-line poems  -- as in January we had done haiku, in February couplets. in March aphorisms. On April 5 I may have been in Cincinnati visiting Jim. The baseball season had begun, and we talked about the Reds and whether Pete Rose should be barred from the hall of fame because he bet on games. At the time, Jim and I were collaborating on a book of sestinas, which was published three years later by Soft Skull Press under the title Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man illustrated by Archie Rand with contributions from  Beth Ann Fennelly and William Wadsworth, and a foreword from Denise Duhamel. Jim's birthday is July 2 but I discovered the poem today rummaging through old papers, and I can't wait.-- DL

Comments

[jim c.]

I don't think I ever saw this!
Of course, with my memory I'm not sure I remember what a peach is.

Love these rhymes, esp "bets/Let's" and "Queen City/Walter Mitty."
(The latter pair really go together; more's the pity.)

(As do "Cincinnati" and daring to eat a peach.
You can spend a career here, pretending to teach.)

"Teacher" is such a drippy word.
"Hey, don't step in that turd!"

Is about all anyone can really teach ya.
I'd rather go see a double feacha,

with Fred & Ginger, Barbara Stanwyck, or John Wayne--
even S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, or Marjorie Main.

But I'd settle for a Tom Seaver extra-inning thriller
with my old pal Dave and "Cuddles" Sakall. And maybe Phyllis Diller.