Adios, Hermitage
Abe Louise Young
I met Gertrude Stein by the river Seine
the Tour d’Eiffel spilling green
marbles through the alleys
and under my arm I carried a Torah
on a great long roll
of butcher paper—
a phone book Torah,
with names and numbers
of the exact 7 billion
people alive
on the planet today
every continent included
We read aloud and drank like hags
and dipped hot baguettes in the river,
and after I intoned each name and number
Gertrude yelled
Encore!
Abe Louise Young is an award-winning poet and educator living in Austin, Texas. She was educated at Northwestern University and the University of Texas, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow in Writing. Her poems have been published widely, most recently in Witness, Christian Science Monitor, Massachusetts Review and The Texas Observer. Her books include Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students (Next Generation Press, 2011); and Ammonite: Poems (Magnolia Press Collective, 2010).