Something strange happened today. It was a good thing, though. I starting reading poetry that I liked. I read and read Raymond Carver and Robert Frost into the night. Re-read all my dog-eared pages. I listened to music I liked—I listened to Oasis. I smoked cigarettes in my room. Cold air came in from the night into my bedroom. I looked at my fishing poles and the old tackle box given to me from my dad, and thought of all the fishing I’ve been doing recently. Good fishing, catching a lot, even at the river. I thought about driving to the park and falling asleep under a tree, and then waking up to a pee-wee football game—the flood lights and parents screaming. I thought about my own life—don’t we all in that poetic way? I thought about my friends, my sponsor taking me to the magnolia record store where I got the Oasis CD. Guilty pleasures, maybe. But I came up with this poem:

Broken Belt

I watch, lying in front of a church,
Cars pass on the street
Like soft and silent orbs into the night.
My belt, my father’s old leather belt,
Has split into halves.
Carefully, I take each end
And hide them away in the church’s vines.
This has become my life:
A broken belt, alone at night,
Nowhere to go, nothing to do,
And frustrated about it all.


I thought some more about Raymond Carver. Him as a struggling poet. Working as a janitor at a community college. Attending that same college and meeting john Gardner. What dumb luck. I thought into the night about my next move and what it should be. Another job, then pay rent. Live like this, singular, but not. Happy. Happiness comes over me tonight, into tonight, unexpectedly. One night in the future, I'll remember the night where I was happy enough to stay up for it.