Near Melbourne University, 4:25pm
I get on a tram with Kenneth Koch.
I've never read his poems before,
& with each line I feel like saying ‘hang on’.
It starts to annoy me
so I pull another book I borrowed
called ‘Dispatches’ by Michael Herr.
It’s for an essay apparently based
on secondary sources
for a course called Modern America.
At least, this was listed
as a secondary source;
perhaps primaries are less edited;
young, like this nineteen year old’s account
but somehow valuable
because he reckoned he’d seen it all.
I can never read
dissecting the CBD.
There are kids my age wearing tracksuits
& cigarette straws from McDonalds.
My sister said a gang of guys got on her tram.
From their bags they pretended to pull
automatic machineguns.
I just fell in love with a circle-face girl
who paired with me in a Macbeth tutorial.
We were decrypting a passage
upon the battlements;
she kept saying ‘Affaffination’;
kept laughing, into my eyes.
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