ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
TO SUMMER
by David Lehman

Shall I compare a season to a day,
A woman to a body like a violin?
Summer is the reason for my grin,
And on that violin I would play.

In the nave of her church I would pray.
Though summer's lease hath all too short a date,
I shall fall into winter and spring to my fate,
And while you wait I'll be frank and sing "My Way."

But just as a whole is greater than the sum
Of its parts, or `twere a bummer, rank indeed,
So a garden outlives its fiercest weed
To blossom under my green thumb.
On her I shall gaze from head to bum.
Where summer follows I shall lead.

David Lehman is a poet, writer, and editor. His most recent book of poetry, The Daily Mirror (2000), a selection of the poems he has written since embarking on the experiment of writing a poem a day, will soon be followed by its sequel, The Evening Sun (2002). Lehman is the founding editor of The Best American Poetry series and is co-director of the Monday night poetry reading series at the KGB Bar in New York. His most recent nonfiction book is The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets.

[Editor's note: This poem was entered and placed second place in the "G-String Divas Sonnet Contest." G-String Divas is an HBO reality-based drama that centers around the life of exotic dancers at Diva's, a gentlemen's club in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The poem itself appears on HBO's site, and is credited to "David from New York."]