June 16
It's Bloomsday in Dublin
and wherever Ulysses works
as an advertizing man
with an unfaithful wife
as I sit here listening
to a lecture on Flannery
O'Conner, Frank O'Conner
and Frank, I think of going
to Dublin with you and buying
a toy wedding ring at
Woolworth's and the phrase
'mock funeral' comes
to me I don't know what it
means though I remember being
the groom at a mock wedding
with a girl named Ann in 1956
I was eight and so was she
and all the other children
were in the procession it was
the first hot night in June and
yes she said yes I will yes
by David Lehman