They were half-radical, smoked occasionally,
And hated to be interrupted—just like me.
I had read things—bragged I knew the State Department fix,
Knew the Ayatollah was really MI6.
My Iranian girlfriends
Didn’t seem Iranian at all—
What is Iranian?
In this political version
Let’s call them Persian.
American, blue-eyed, and tall,
A student of English poetry,
I discovered quickly they didn’t like poetry.
Why did they say they did?
They couldn’t fool me,
Or they didn’t want to; they had a tendency to kid,
So it was funny after a while.
They were not poetic as much as pragmatic.
They had professionalism, taste, and style.
In an effort to be all things in one gesture,
And transcend all poetry with one smile,
They easily seduced the American in me,
A slob compared to them. They seduced me, totally—
Except for the one part of me that was the English poet,
And that was how I hated them, wouldn’t you know it?