John Poem by Morgan Michaels

Your eye was like a deep mountain lake
a nestle of blue, say, rimmed with leaf-green
over which clouds passed, reflecting,
though a boring person turned it instantly gray.

Behind it was a quarter-mile track, a whole gym,
around which towel-clad thoughts raced
every day, non-stop, effortlessly
toward an imaginary finish line

and it quickly resumed its cerulean hue
at the prospect of a sale. A sale!
provided the buyer knew just how much he was spending
relative to the worth of the purchase,

or, again, maybe, at some instance of human charm
(not rare in your specialized shop)
some bright, cute, knowlegeable kid,
for example, who pretended to know more than he did.

And so you had the privilege, the obligation, even,
of selling him his first photograph-
smiling only when your sensible, well-considered advice
was viewed either as a sales-pitch or a come-on;

Knowing it to...