Weekly Poem: ‘Second Helping’

By Michael Robbins

I dare not speak my name, it is so long
and unpronounceable. I enforce the thaw
here among the timbered few. We despise you
and whatever you rode in on—is that a swan?
I’m not really like this. I’m over the moon.

Still, we jar marmalade. We plow.
We don’t need Neil Young around anyhow.
Your tribe’s Doritos are infested with a stegosaur.
That Forever 21 used to be a Virgin Megastore.

Scott Baio in full feathered glory
was everything I’m not. I am everything I am
and then some. I’m coming along nicely.
Don’t stick your fork in me till I’m done.

Michael Robbins is the author of the collection of poems “Alien vs. Predator” (Penguin, 2012). His poems have appeared in several publications, including the New Yorker, Poetry, Harper’s and Boston Review. He reviews books for the London Review of Books and other publications, and music for The Daily and the Village Voice. He lives in Chicago.