Epigrams: Three Japanese Beetles

 To Someone Who Insisted I Look Up Someone

I rang them up while touring Timbuctoo,

Those bosom chums to whom you're known as "Who?"

Two Lovers Make Love Despite Their Sunburns

With motion slow and gingerly they place

Their outward forms, broiled bright as carapace,

Like linesmen handling bared high-tension wires,

Dreading the surges of abrupt desires.

(No title)

None but the Spirit, moving and igniting,

Deserves the credit in Creative Writing.

X.J. Kennedy

From Cross Ties: Selected Poems (University of Georgia Press, 1985),
copyright (c) 1985 by X. J. Kennedy. For permission to reprint, transmit
by internet, or for any other purpose, address Curtis Brown Ltd.,
Ten Astor Place, New York, NY 10003.