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Song

By Randall Mann Randall Mann Read the Q & A

I found my muster station, sir.

My skin is patent leather.

The tourists are recidivists.

This calm is earthquake weather.

I’ve used up all the mulligans.

I’d kill to share a vice.

The youngster reads a yellowed Oui.

The socialite has lice.

The Europe trip I finally took

was rash and Polaroid,

was gilt, confit, and bathhouse foam.

And I cannot avoid

the end: I will not die in Paris,

won’t rest for good behind

a painted mausoleum door.

The purser will not find

me mummified beneath your tulle,

and Paris will not burn.

Today is Thursday, so I’ll die.

Come help me pick my urn.

Source: Poetry (April 2010).

Biography

Randall Mann’s poems are often set within the landscape of Florida or California. Influenced by Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, and Donald Justice, Mann’s poetry—at once vulnerable, unflinching, and brave in its ambivalence—explores themes of loss, attraction, brutality, and expectation. Of his preference for working in form, Mann says, “Form helps me approach more comfortably the personal, helps me harden argument.”

Mann is . . .

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