Not sure if I should post this one.

One About Doubt & Other American Pastimes

My glances were hardly subtle –
I never figured out how you’re supposed
to behave around others, or
when you’ve been staring too long,
how to pretend you’re looking elsewhere.

Someone asked if I was alright;
they were glad I came back, they said.
I smiled awkwardly, mumbled thanks,
sitting in a satin suit jacket and paisley red,
feeling aristocratically out of place.

You whizzed by.

There was this sad sensation eking through me,
that somewhere there was an empty space
I should’ve been filling:
perhaps I should’ve been a farmhand in Iowa,
toiling with spuds like only a Mick knows how.
I would work all day, come home to a dusty family,
and read Great American Novels by candlelight.

I would meet God in a field at dusk, He
would be pleased with my tilling and
might take me out for a Coors Light,
at the Storm Lake Saloon,
where he would destroy me at pool.

Elegant in defeat, I retreated from my mind.
It was seven months ago today
I’d stared at a river and hoped I could fly.
I didn’t know you then, not like I know my
oak-walled farm house near Aurelia, IA.
Sadly, I don’t know if I will ever see the inside
of either of you.