People say that an old man can’t learn poems by heart, but I learned this one over a cup of coffee:
The fish has too many bones
and the watermelon too many seeds.
Maybe a 12-word poem is cheating. But I think of my gold star for memorization as one of the benefits of reading poems that don’t make the textbooks.
This one is by Charles Reznikoff and is called “The Old Man.” I’ve reached the age where I need to have it in memory as a talisman against the kind of grumpiness that finds fault with watermelon.
• Source: Poems 1918-1975, The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney; Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1996, Vol. 2, p. 104.
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