I have seen the
pale, sweatless ones
in their beige cubicles
silently staring
in their airplanes
their clothes saying it all
saying all they have to say.

Did I seek this?
Did I sweat for this?
Do I want insured survival
at the cost of my soul?
Surely not.

It's not what I thought
as Faust told the devil
not really what I wanted
at all.

There seems to be no place
for educated American white trash
unless I toss the trash
the best part of me
selling my redneck white trash soul
for a spot in a cubicle.

But I can go home
and say it was all a
mistake, an illusion,
and sit on the bench
outside the post office
looking up and down the street
at the dust, miles and miles
of clean desert dirt
and smell the sage
and know who fathered
the puppies
and talk to the skinny old men
who spit between the spaces in their teeth
and tell me
they are not heroes
and tell me
don't fall in love with me,
I'm no good.

And in the afternoon, after
the mail has come and gone
I will drink coffee with my friends
and talk about writing a
cookbook of 1001 lard recipes
and how somebody ought to take
that old hound dog out to the vet
and get him fixed
because all the puppies
all over town
look just like him
but we like him too
so we never will.

Then the town drunk will stumble by
and call me his darling
saying he'll marry me
for the price of some
good Irish whiskey
and a dust devil will
put its arms around me
and leave some grit and tears
in my eyes
and it will be good
to be home again.

- Dandelion de la Rue
 

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