Template
 
Often in school I disliked
the lack of room for individual
expression in assignments.
Someone comes to visit
(one essay question read).
What is the purpose of the baseball bat
the visitor carries? Is it
to invite you to a friendly game
or brain you? What is
the gender of your visitor [henceforth V]?
The sex? What can the wood
or metal of the bat, the fabric of the clothes
V wears (which may, remember,
be male or female) tell us
about our economic relations
with other countries? How about
the weather? Is it relevant
except as an indicator
of climate change? You may ask the same question
about V’s body language and facial expression.
Restricting yourself to these elements,
construct a narrative of your encounter. Be
creative. – This didn’t interest me at all,
but the question piqued
the math side of my brain, and I imagined
a template by which one
could determine instantly
the usefulness and/or hostility
of any visitor. Got a C
minus. That was typical. Which is, I suppose,
why no one visits.

Fred Pollack

 
If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Fred Pollack would be pleased to hear them.