A Poem

This is from Brian Kim Steffans' Collected: What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers


Miniature (Orkney Lyric)

My mother with the half moon eyes
(oh! she's had a bit to drink,
her eyes are usually minus signs).


*

Such a little poem but I absolutely swoon over the use of the exclamation mark after oh. It's complete Frank O'hara enthusiasm, but feels wholly original within this sparse poem. BKS (as Eric Baus refers to him) has such control here that the poem is pitch perfect in pith.