Sonnet 209. On Being Mistaken for the Author of a Book I was Reading at the Time.
“Excuse me, are you Kevin Powers, sir?”
She said. She was the third that day who’d asked.
“You wrote a fine war book called Yellow Birds.”
A prompt lest I’d forgotten who I was.
I wasn’t, and I hadn’t. But I’m white,
Clean cut, short haired, (if no way military),
And not from Austin, Texas. But I write.
Though I’d not read his book, or poetry.
I answered, “No,” then smiled, then bought his book:
The war tried to kill us in the spring.
I read it awe-struck, pen in hand. I took
A deep breath from that awesome opening,
When someone said, “You’re Kevin Powers, I bet!”
I looked up slowly from his book, “Not yet!”
Andrew Barker
11 июл 2024
