In Belated Memoriam Maxine Kumin

I had one skinny book
Of your poems, you
Tall and horsy, looking

Confidently middle-aged
On the cover. Your Retrieval
System. I bought it for your age,

The same as my mother,
And because it said you'd won
The Pulitzer, and the other books

By other teachers I knew
Seemed not so well regarded.
To tell the truth,

I was ignorant. I was eighteen.
Beyond memorizing a little
Bit of Shakespeare,

Hopkins, and Pope, poetry
Was new to me. I wanted,
Weirdly, to be a poet,

Based on no experience
Of reading much or writing
Any at all. The virulence

Of this sudden sickness led
Me, not one of your students,
To put one delirious scrawl bred

Out of a memory of gold
Days in a hospital bed, spent
Dazed and, as I was later told,

Near death at age seven,
In your campus mailbox,
Anonymously. Eleven

Days of checking surreptitiously
Later, my pages reappeared
Covered with your judiciously

Thoughtful, somehow maternal,
Generously encouraging remarks
And stern suggestions.

It was the first and last time
A prominent poet took the time
To comment on my lines.

I carried your book around
With me, along with Baudelaire,
Bishop, Williams, and Pound,

All in narrow paperback selections.
I lost track of your work and your contemporaries
Mostly, except your friend Sexton.

I grew old and disappeared. I wrote

Or didn't. I read mostly other things
Than poems. I could quote

Whole sections of Retrieval System,
Then just my two favorite poems,

Then just a few lines, phrases. I wonder

If you ever wondered about
The effects of your gentle gifts
On those who forever remained without

A proper means of thanking you,
Living lives outside the world
Of workshops and magazines,

Of readings and prizes
And critical reviews. You're gone.

Too late for me to say it, but thank you.