Elegy to Richard Brautigan

As an aspiring literati
I had him by the ass.
Knew everything there was to know.

Never met him:
could he poach a trout's egg? squeaky nasal
voice or wine gravel grating I didn't
have a clue, didn't want one.
Did he fart at the dinner table?
Did he have 2 big toes? No matter.

He was secondary
to my analyses and Iwasbrilliant,
a mirror in the sun.

A thread of Rommel
tied to one big toe
drove on deep into Egypt

and through the trigger guard.

A strategic do-si-do around the trout-slender-gunmetal crescent
just once
(so it couldn't slip off, of course)
and then united with big toe ally on the other side.
Toe-to-toe communication, like a tin can telephone.

Pellets
like trout
swam upbarrel to spawn coitus of death
in Richard's brain.

Brautigan was mine.
Right until he did himself.