By: JD DeHart

The first time I met Nabokov

I only wanted to read him because

I knew Lolita was tawdry, a reason

Steeped in juvenile thought

Quickly, I saw the poetic movement

Finding his voice through transparent

Embers of verse, the confessions

Of an aging pedagogue, the Kafkaesque

Story of Cincinnatus, decapitated,

The Orwellian police state narrative

All bearing witness to a writer

Adept, thoughtful, yet learning English

As a language second to Russian.