Writing in America

I do not even write from
New York or
San Francisco.
Whatever I say is nothing
you don’t already know,
nothing you haven’t seen.

I met a man this summer
at the bar, dressed in Levi’s
and thick greasy glasses.
Rob the Author gave me a copy of his “best work,”
which he just happened to have on hand—
some post-modern essay with an unnecessarily long title.

Sometimes he’d catch me at morning coffee
and have a chat with “little miss poet.”

I bet a small town’s imagery
is quickly expended.
You can really only talk
so much about the
hazy dredges at the bottom
of Logger’s pint beer glass, or
the little blue pools
underneath the translucent
surface of Carl’s skin,
filled by his father.
Everything runs out.

Rob’s creased essay,
beneath all of its
pretentious word choice and
ambiguous metaphors,
pop-culture comparatives,
I’m sure was about this—
I think he’d had the luck of,
for a few short weeks,
years ago, sleeping with the
go-cart park owner’s daughter.

(In the same way that this poem
is actually about
a pizza-dough maker.)

My soul is filled slowly,
with tiny shards
of “I think I could see.”

I’m sure I could drench it
in a moment
with a glimpse of the Catacombs.
Write about it for years maybe.

Rob the Author had been published,
two or three times,
in the local arts paper
and by some small publisher
in obscure, unremarkable anthologies.
I never did find out
what he did for a living.

I am writing in Wisconsin,
and I am not sorry at all.
Instead I feel sorry for
London – New York – Chicago – Paris – Amsterdam – Tokyo

I am certain they never met
the pizza-dough maker.

Reviews

[justjenn_2u]

Nothing in this poem seems artificial or overwritten. I especially like the closure.

[Brenda Sue]

This is very cute. A very well written poem. Wonderfully penned. Great job.