The Audience Poem by Mike Finley

Sometimes I played out in back of the meat mart,
hoping maybe the Polanskys would see me,
let me into the pool,
let me ride the horses,
or let me watch Steve's go-kart.

One day I opened a drum by the rendering plant.
Inside were the eyes of a hundred head of cattle,
some looking this way,
some looking that,
and that, and that, and that, and that,
each one the size of my fist.

Today Steve Polansky still works at the meat mart.
He and his brothers run it now,
hauling the sides of animals on hooks
up and down the sawdust floors.

But with me it was different.
I was a poet,
and I lived for my audience.