From a manuscript in progress.

The best I can do is to be concrete,
by which I mean cemented
in place. By
which I mean being
the mean witch
I concretely have become. A pointy black
factual hat. A nonfictional wand. My husky boy
feet cemented into the concrete
veranda. A veranda I call a veranda
because it is not a veranda.

Read me my Miranda rights on that one;
it’s a class thing.
Like calling a soda cracker a Tombstone
pizza. Or my kid calling his dad
Crackerjack
when he walked on concrete sidewalks
in his businessman shoes
because they sounded
like horse’s hooves, and he thought

Crackerjack
was a good name for a horse.