Claudia

Claudia, you're a cute and clever cunt
and I say that with impunity
being one myself. I loved it when
you rhymed cunt with aunt
as no one but Auden and you could do.
I used to think you were a phony.
Boy, was I wrong. You were the real thing
even in high school, a complete narcissist.
You knew then that the poet must
have an angular face with a cigarette
hanging from her lips in the photo
dying in the wind undernourished
like an East European poet. To be great
is to be almost unknown with tits
on the balcony of the world.
Never will you use "immutably" in a poem.
For that I will always respect you