If I’d been a painter I might have been nice.
Not sent to the terrace or out the window
with the other smokers; my pipe would
have reminded East Side hostesses of
an uncle. Not much of a drinker, I’d
see drinkers downstairs to a cab. In the ‘80s
a compliment from Fischl on
my draftsmanship, which I, with
invisible effort, return. (Or is it David Salle,
more effort?) In the ‘90s or Noughts
some rapid-fire cocaine sniffle
praises me nastily for being
out of the game, hiding in timelessness, in nature;
I, mildly: I don’t think that’s what
I’m doing, but by now he’s gone. Artforum
says much the same, but my gallery keeps me.
God knows what the buyers think they see,
but it adds a pleasant serious note
to the room. And of course, if we meet,
I’m nice. Then, just about now
in that alternate life, the retrospective, that
Times article focusing
on the skeleton of a fish, the hollow tree.

Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and three collections, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, September 2023) with many other poems in print and online journals. http://www.frederickpollack.com