Last week the
postman brought
me a letter
from The Church
of The Over-
looked Epilog
saying that, once I
gave my consent,
I would be
canonized on
the basis of
the miracles
my poetry
had wrought. They
gave chapter &
verse — verse
anyway. How
one of my poems
recited incessantly
for seven days
& seven nights
had fended off a
plague of locusts
in Sub-Saharan
Africa. How another,
printed out & mixed
with myrrh & hairgel,
was efficacious as
a cure for river
blindess. How a
third, carried inside
a Tefillin, caused
a stillbirth to be
reversed. I didn't
recognize the titles
of any of the poems
mentioned; but my
memory's not all
it used to be, so
gave my consent
anyway. A sainthood
seemed much more
attractive than the
missing Marcos millions,
discount pharmaceuticals,
superceded software
or having my cock
elongatedededededededededed
& / or
enlarged.

Today the
postman brought
me an invoice for
$50,000. Plus tax.