Muse is a proper girl
She believes form & content
Must be married and self-assured
I buy her 4 engagement rings
Platinum bands, diamonds chips
The formalities must be observed
Poets are supposed to suffer, both
For her and art, the blessings she imparts
Precious metals are at a 25 year high
She’s awed but confounded
"What’s going on?" She smiles,
"Four rings and they’re all posh!"
This way when you throw one back at me
I’ll still have 3 more tries for your heart
For once her smile’s genuine,
Her high-born sense of correctness served
She’s thrilled as I kneel before her
She is a woman as well as a god
She can be secured but at a great price

Angelo Verga curates @ 350 literary readings per year at the seminal Cornelia Street Cafe, in Manhattan, & elsewhere. His poems have appeared in Rattle, Manhattan Review, Massachusetts Review, New Orleans Poetry Forum, Blue Mesa Review, Saint Ann's Review, Paterson Literary Review, New York Quarterly, The Temple, Connecticut Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Heliotrope, and numerous other journals. A Hurricane Is (Jane Street Press, 2003) is currently in a third printing. His most recent collection, 33 New York City Poems (2005) is published by Booklyn.