Except anchovies and now (doctor’s orders) cheese,
Except 13, except when it’s the only window seat left,
Except a glass of white wine with dinner,
Except the Cubs, except Ernie Banks saying “Let’s play two,”
Except Elvis and Jesus, except Oprah and Madonna,
Except snowflakes, each, and Starbucks, all,
Except Las Vegas or Buffalo or Salt Lake,
Except North Dakota, except Mississippi,
Except spiders and jellyfish, rattlesnakes and slugs,
Except the duck-billed platypus and the dodo bird,
Except music, which doesn’t ever say why,
Except Rothko, his red, and Stevens, his angel, his 13 blackbirds.
Except libertarians, except when they happen to be right,
Except World War II, except before Pearl Harbor,
Except to save the life of the mother,
Except the fine print, the back story, the chapter torn out,
Except in translation, except what gets lost.
Don Colburn has published four collections of poems, most recently a chapbook called Tomorrow Too: The Brenda Monologues. A longtime reporter for The Washington Post and The Oregonian, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College, and his poems have appeared in magazines such as Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest and Southern Poetry Review. His first chapbook, Another Way to Begin, won the Finishing Line Press Poetry Prize, and his full-length book, As If Gravity Were a Theory, won the Cider Press Book Award. Other writing honors include the Discovery/The Nation Award, two residencies at The MacDowell Colony and three Pushcart nominations. He lives in Portland, OR.
