"Page 19" (Poem 31)

I wonder at times why

one writes an ambitious,
acerbic, everyday,
needlessly-adjective-laden

novel,


why the author

tucking back
his coarse pony-tail

opened with a setting
he knew nothing about—

    "fucking corn[fields]" in Topeka.


I am sure he knows all too well
how it feels to grow up

wanting to misplace one's home

to find meaning elsewhere
down endless stretches of road.


And I am sure he has something
pulchritudinous to convey. But
amidst the word choice...

I can't quite go on.


Still, I can't help but wonder

if once I met him
walking across the world in
sweat-stained Patagonia

telling his evening stories
that were both stranger
and wiser than fiction.


If only those stories
were on this page now.

If only those stories
did not scatter
with morning rain.