Lady’s Slipper

That poem was my career. It poured flop sweat

and begged grad students to stop hating me.

It punched at the famous and took cover

in weeks of Beyoncé-fed solitude.

That poem knew where it was and how much

it was worth compared to a blow job.

It knew the other poems by name: they

gave me panic attacks they struck so quick.

That poem was the great hope I wouldn’t work

for a living, the dream I could survive,

being admired as if an academic

John Stamos (or a telegenic Žižek).

That poem did what I told it to do.

Sort of. It snarled up on Asbestos Heights.

Now, of course, snarling is all it’s good for

as my hunchback moves to the left, to the left.