Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine poet laureate.

Who would have guessed that today’s poet, Thomas Moore of Brooksville, would run into Tom Brady at a poetry reading — during the Patriots’ first home game, no less?

Chick Magnets

By Thomas Moore

It’s the Patriots’ home opener

and I’m at a poetry opening in Maine.

The Pats are playing the Cincinnati Bengals,

yet Tom Brady is here at the poetry reading!

“Tom,” I say, “why aren’t you in Foxborough?”

“Oh,” he says, “I’ve always liked poetry

and I’m making seventy-two mil’

so I can do what I want –

Coach Belichick isn’t too happy, though.”

The poets read about Cranberry Island,

mice in bread boxes, dragon-flies,

Morocco, eating oysters in Grand Central Station,

summer cottages, and, well, you know,

the kind of stuff poets write about:

heartbreak, and a lot of asters by the side of the road.

“This Savory and James is good stuff,” says Tom

after the reading. “Smoother than Bud Light,

and being here is a lot easier than throwing passes”

– his left knee twitches and lifts slightly –

“or getting trashed by the Bengals’ defense.

Plus, these poetry readings are real chick magnets—

you and I are the only guys here!”

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2012 Thomas R. Moore. Reprinted from Chet Sawing, Fort Hemlock Press, 2012, by permission of Thomas R. Moore. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.