A Book I Can Put Down<br /><br />I’m halfway through<br />and I’ve gotten used<br />to the way it wants<br />to be read. This writer<br />wants to spoon it up,<br />wants to watch me<br />swallow it. This writer<br />makes a point of good<br />deeds, clean living,<br />god and country,<br />when what I want<br />is sin and shame,<br />the rusty metal edge<br />of cruelty, varieties<br />of pain, his mother<br />still crying years later,<br />just like mine. I want<br />a writer who’s given up<br />on the moral of the story,<br />one who’ll hand me<br />a knife and sit back<br />to see what I do with it.<br /><br />(Published in <i>Anderbo</i>)