I am surprised by my reputation
at dinners of readers and poets,
a few I don’t know know me.
Take a group of art historians, some puppets,
a few know me, I don’t know. Dogs recognize me,
a pharmacist with a Greek name told me
he heard someone read my poems on the radio.
I was delighted a chimney fixer asked me:
“Are you the Stanley Moss I read in prison.”
Still what will be my reputation
50 years from now?
I am more likely to be reputed
than to have reputation. I may touch
a happy few and unhappy readers
for a while—or “a while” times two,
rememberèd, scraped on something lonely
like a rock or fence: he was.