“Eleemosynary”
first popped up
in O. Henry’s
Strictly Business

possibly not at
his University
of Texas, Austin
nursery division

though perhaps
cutting my teeth
during 2nd grade
in Chicago, or

maybe Mom was
reading to me at
home in St. Louis
as (to be charitable)

Daddy feigned
shrugging guilty
pleasure business
toward Trollope’s

Victorian porn.
Which boy’s next
poison will it be,
pounds of novelist

Pynchon’s purple
prolixity versus
an ounce of Ezra’s
petty peeved fascism?

Gerard Sarnat MD’s authored HOMELESS CHRONICLES, Disputes, 17s, Melting Ice King. Gerry’s published by Gargoyle, Newark Public Library, Blue Minaret, North Meridian Review, Columbia, Penn, Harvard, Brown, Stanford, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Institute, Buddhist Review, American Journal Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Brooklyn Review, LA Review, SF Magazine, NY Times.