The New Poetry is no longer new. Nor is it poetry, which ceased to exist
around the time I began this book. Sandra’s new slim collection,

Steam, arrived yesterday. It is buff-colored. Betsy reports songs of tulips,
magnolias, & Amish from Pennsylvania. These arrivals that constantly

renew make no new sense to me now. We are all still alone, whether
standing in a parking garage or amidst a copse of dying stinking flowers.

The time just goes. It just does. Lines in the mirror.
This, you may have noticed, is my not-quite-virtuoso exploration of poetry’s

Oldest theme. Because I am an oldish man. That dragon slew Beowulf.