an homage to Wallace Stevens
The baseball player Pete Rose
Dressed in a Cincinnatti Reds uniform
On a box of breakfast cereal looking
At Pete Rose in uniform on a box of cereal looking
At uniformed Pete Rose on a cereal box looking
At the ballplayer Pete Rose on a cereal box looking
At Pete Rose emperor of hits looking
At a ballplayer trying to halt an obsession
If he can stop looking
At Pete Rose on a cereal box looking
At a dark-shadowed image of Pete Rose looking
For an escape to meaning as millions of fans
Want only to remember looking at Pete Rose
On a box of breakfast cereal and what something so simple
As a cereal box can mean to a young boy
Looking at an image of what Pete Rose once was
Adorning a cereal box while the ballplayer pure
Agony in his dreams replaying memories
From cereal boxes repeated endlessly . . .
--Zyskandar Jaimot
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