Round 62:

Yusef: "The Restaurant Business" by James Tate

Bob: "You also, Nightingale" by Reginald Shepherd

"Elsie and I were having a nice, little romantic dinner at our favorite restaurant, when the owner of the restaurant came over and sat down at our table.."

It works as prose; I'm not sure why Tate feels he has to break the lines at "romantic / dinner" and "of / the." His scary little parable is classic Tate, a prose-poem written in lines of verse. "I was reading a nice, little book of poetry by James Tate in the bookstore when the owner of the bookstore interrupted me to ask whether I was going to buy the book." The poem has a terrifying conclusion. Normally, I wouldn't get that far.

Sheperd's weird imagining of Petrarch is closer to genuine surrealism, and the lines are genuinely verse:

Petrarch dreams of pebbles
on the tongue, he loves me
at a distance, black polished stone
skipping the lake that follows

worn-down words...

He wins the round for Bob.

After 62

17-34-10