(after “Poem to Some of My Recent Poems” by James Tate)

Honestly, most of you are better than what you try so hard
to celebrate. Not that you have given Shakespeare’s bones
any reason to quiver with envy in their dark eternal nest,
but you are manifestly superior to any song by Air Supply.
Somewhere in that amorphous vacant lot
between immortality and mediocrity
is where you little lichens cling to the cracked stone
that is my life. Some of you are phosphorescent
and glow occasionally, others pulse with a primitive beat
in the blood that is either very bad jazz
or very good rock and roll. One of you repented
and joined a speechless monastery where the only poetry
allowed is the bell tolling for the noonday meal.
Another decided to become a policeman, who when called
to a domestic dispute automatically shoots to kill
both parties as a matter of general principle.
Justifiable romanticide, they call it.
There are so many ways to go wrong in this world,
so few to go right, it’s a wonder any of you turned out at all.
While I am your only father, you have many mothers,
all of them desirable at one point
and leaving something to be desired at another.
I hope you never lose touch with each other
because aside from your raggedy brothers and sisters
you are completely alone. Nobody cares
about anyone else’s love or the stray
bastard utterance to which it may have given birth.