The Poet’s Occasional Alternative by Grace Paley

The Poet’s Occasional Alternative

by Grace Paley

I was going to write a poem

I made a pie instead it took

about the same amount of time

of course the pie was a final

draft a poem would have had some

distance to go days and weeks and

much crumpled paper

the pie already had a talking

tumbling audience among small

trucks and a fire engine on

the kitchen floor

everybody will like this pie

it will have apples and cranberries

dried apricots in it many friends

will say why in the world did you

make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable

sadnesses I decided to

settle this morning for a

responsive eatership I do not

want to wait a week a year a

generation for the right

consumer to come along

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