Poet's Choice

For some reason until I get that name right

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I can't permit myself to think it through.

Maddening, like a sneeze that won't quite,

all day it just, climax unbrought-to . . .

Sir Arthur Cronin seems plausible

until I suspect I've conflated the actor

with Conan Doyle, who solved hard cases

of lives dissolved. Absurd, really,

this paralyzing sense of obligation to a name.

Alas poor whoozis, who'd have given rise

to some thought in my still humming skull,

my wracked skull rich with the image of his,