Mark VanPutten - "Letter to Richard Hugo from Washington, D.C."

Dear Dick:
Though we met only once,
The intimacy of your letter-poems
Emboldens me to address you so.
Though hung over, you and Ripley were so very kind
That Sunday morning thirty years ago
When I showed up, uninvited, at your home in Missoula.
We sat in your backyard drinking iced tea talking of baseball and poetry,
Laughing about Seattle’s new team and Ray Oyler’s strange trek
From the Tigers to the Pilots to the Safeway loading dock.
Somehow, it doesn’t seem funny any more
Now that Denny McClain’s serving Slurpees after hard time for mail fraud,
Mickey Lolich sold his donut shop to do time on baseball fantasy cruises,
And the emptiness between Hughes and Jarrell on Borders’ shelves
Where once your books stood.
The only joke my new town triggers
Are the eleven-dollar crabcakes at the ballpark
And arguments over parking and concession revenues.
Seriously, I miss the clarity of your voice from Montana
And the honesty of the obstructed view seats in the old Tiger Stadium.
Fondly, Mark