Mark Blaeuer

Men & Hats 

As with my hat upon my head
I walk’d along the Strand,
I there did meet another man
With his hat in his hand.
  			—Samuel Johnson

A third man trod his hat beneath
hobnails, at my command.
The fourth man pleaded with his hat
to dance a sarabande.

A fifth man quarreled with his hat
(addressed as Ray Milland).
A sixth man told his hat to fly
away to Samarkand.

The seventh stuffed his hat into
a satchel: contraband.
The eighth man wore no hat at all—
his skull had been trepanned.

The essence of our hattishness
eludes an ampersand,
which, too, dispenses with the hat,
impersonating and.

Mark Blaeuer lives near Hot Springs, Arkansas. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Able Muse, Better Than Starbucks, The Dark Horse, Measure, Nimrod, Westview, and The Windsor Review. Kelsay Books released a collection, Fragments of a Nocturne, in 2014.