answer:And I guess as long as I’m asking, I’ll share. Here’s a great one someone showed me yesterday: Sestina: Bob According to her housemate, she is out with Bob tonight, and when she’s out with Bob you never know when she’ll get in. Bob is an English professor. Bob used to be in a motorcycle gang, or something, or maybe Bob rides a motorcycle now. How radical of you, Bob— I wish I could ride a motorcycle, Bob, and also talk about Chaucer intelligently. Bob is very tall, bearded, reserved. I saw Bob at a poetry reading last week—he had such a Bob- like poise—so quintessentially Bob! The leather jacket, the granny glasses, the beard—Bob! and you were with my ex-girlfriend, Bob! And you’re a professor, and I’m nobody, Bob, nobody, just a flower-deliverer, Bob, and a skinny one at that, Bob— and you are a large person, and I am small, Bob, and I hate my legs, Bob, but why am I talking to you as if you were here, Bob? I’ll try to be more objective. Bob is probably a nice guy. Or that’s what one hears. Bob is not, however, the most passionate person named Bob you’ll ever meet. Quiet, polite, succinct, Bob opens doors for people, is reticent in grocery stores. Bob does not talk about himself excessively to girlfriends. Bob does not have a drinking problem. Bob does not worry about his body, even though he’s a little heavy. Bob has never been in therapy. Bob, also, though, does not have tenure—ha ha ha—and Bob cannot cook as well as I can. Bob never even heard of paella, and if he had, Bob would not have changed his facial expression at all. Bob is just so boring, and what I can’t understand, Bob— yes I’m talking to you again, is why you, Bob, could be more desirable than me. Granted, Bob, you’re more stable, you’re older, more mature maybe but Bob … (Months later, on the Bob-front: My former girlfriend finally married Bob. Of Bob, she says, “No one has taken me higher or lower than Bob.” Me? On a dark and stormy sea of Bob-thoughts, desperately, I bob.) — Jonah Winter