Comparative Fates
David Lehman
I choose Keats. You choose Yeats.
Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost are two other all-time greats.
We vote for love. Those who cling to their hates
Will lose in a game of comparative fates.
The fast man waits. The slow man compensates.
The umpire berates. The refugee contemplates.
No feasts await the performer of feats;
Nor are there secrets inside the gates.
In one room a girl of seventeen overeats
And then she is twenty-five and sick of her mate’s
Bad table manners and other repellent traits.
Thanks but no thanks for the treats.
Note: when a novelist conflates
A pair of anecdotes, the prose seldom sates
Or keeps the customers in their seats
Like the recollection of college dates.
No wonder everything repeats.
