We have a broadside by Phillip Whalen up in our bathroom of a poem called “The Elizabethan Phrase.” It’s dated 1982, and signed in 1985. I asked Larry, who knows the dates of most poets, when Phillip Whalen died.
“He’s not dead that I know of,” he said, and went to look him up.
“I was wrong. He died in 2002. And he was born in 1923.”
After a minute he added, “He’s about 10 years older and 11 years deader than I thought.”
In other news, I had culled about 30 small red onions from the discarded greens they give me for my chickens after the Sunday farmers’ market. The onions seemed way too good to compost, and I set them aside. I noted to Larry that they were just fine, just a little cosmetically challenged. “How good does an onion have to look?” he wondered.