By David Wagoner, from the Summer 2012 issue of The Georgia Review. Wagoner is the author of ten novels and twenty-four books of poems, including, most recently, After the Point of No Return.

He told me I was casting aspersions on him, and because he was sensitive and literary, I knew he must be telling me I was sprinkling unholy water on him, was sailing a phony barb-hooked lure among his lily pads, was gathering a lousy bunch of actors to make a bad movie about him, was pouring hot metal into molds to anchor some satirical bobble-heads that looked…