Three Poems by Patrick Donnelly (Poetry ’03)

have heard through some trembling of their web
of acquaintance that I am here, and from
the academical villages where they teach English,
French, piano, and design, from small museums
called jewel-like by the locals, where they docent
and curate, have come to hear me read some poems.
They served in the army, never married,
live close to their mothers or with them.
One drove fifty miles over the mountains, across
the James and past the stink of the paper mill.
One seemed terrified when I began but afterward
shouted an invitation to visit his carriage house
and was I maybe interested in antique cars?