Alan Dugan Telling Me I Have A Problem With Time Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKDLMNOPQAR LSTCUVGWICSXYZA2B2C2 LD2E2D2F2B2

He reads my latest attempt at a poemA
and is silent for a long time until it feelsB
like that night we waited for ApolloC
my mother wandering in and out of her bedroom askingD
Haven't they landed yet At lastE
Dugan throws it on the table and saysF
This reads like a cheap detective novelG
and I've got nothing to say about it It sitsH
naked and white with everyone's eyesI
running over it The week beforeJ
he'd said I had a problem with timeK
that in my poems everythingD
kept happening at once InL
the voice of Mission ControlM
told a man named BuzzN
that there was a bunch of guys turning blueO
down here on Earth and now I can understandP
it was with anticipation not sickness NextQ
Dugan says Let's move on The attempted poemA
was about butterflies and my recurring desireR
to return to a place I've never beenL
It was inspired by reading thisS
in a National Geographic monarchsT
stream northward from winter roosts in MexicoC
laying their eggs atop milkweedU
to foster new generations along the wayV
With the old monarchs gone I took this line as the titleG
and all ties to the past ostensibly cutW
the unimaginable happens butterfliesI
that have never been to that plateau in MexicoC
roost there the next winter I saw thisS
as a metaphor for a childhood I never hadX
until Dugan pointed outY
that metaphor has been dead for a hundred yearsZ
A woman new to the workshop leansA2
behind his back and whispers I like itB2
but the silence is seamless as deepC2
as outer space That night inL
I could turn my head from the television and seeD2
the moonE2
filling the one pane over the bed completelyD2
as we waited for Neil ArmstrongF2
to leave his footprints all over itB2

Nick Flynn



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