Gertrude

i am jealous
Gertrude Stein
that you coul sit
with Hemingway
and Scott and Ezra
that you could listen
to their private
minds

i am jealous
Gertrude Stein
that you are dead
and you are famous
and i am neither dead
nor the other

there is a need
to write
a need to love
a need to make my fellow man
unencumbered
by this day

and yet
i am jealous
Gertrude Stein
that your pathetic name
is synonymous
with rose