He speaks for us, the outsiders who
gather in clumps, uniform in black and
thrifty corduroy and see ourselves in his
tale’s reassuring morals, his confession’s
predictable penance. His words keep
clean of metaphor or pretensions to the
violence of literature, his tears track our
trail through depression, and if the culvert
runs too shallow, a rivulet of alcohol will
serve to deepen it. His veneration of every
sacred cow communicates by the depth of
his bow. His new chapbook, built from old
reliable words and personal relations, I
clutch in my fist, and breathless, I aspirate
and say I ate every line, please sign? He
blows smoke up like Belmondo imitating
Brando imitating Bogart, so I offer to hold
his cigarette which he stubs out in my palm,
and he frowns, which for him counts as charm.
He makes failure a winner every time.