Cheever and Updike

I'm Updike.  I found my fluency young.

I could out-b.s. all my profs at Yale,

He outwrote his peers, his painting was dung,

As were my stories.  We soared past a fail.


I reread "California" recently,

It's not too bad, but it's too schematic,

It upscales the magi's gift decently,

It's too New Yorker deadpan dramatic.


I'm Cheever.  Swimming in a marsh at night,

That once was mine but is not anymore,

To a decrepit dock with a dead light.

The site of a Wapshot-like family war.


I'm Portnoy.  I think I could have waxed Roth.

Been a Waspy master of seacoast froth.






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