Dewey Dell Bundren
Had her baby
And ran off to college
Worked single-mother hours
To keep her ****** apartment
And never missed a class
She married the first theology professor she could find
The kind
With the horn rimmed glasses
Drinking imported scotch
Discussing literature around the fire at night
She got a degree
At Northeastern
High honors in history
She never knew all those books were about her
And the people she came from
The places
Had their stories told
In the pages
Shaped everything she had ever known
She was grateful
For her history
And once a year made the trip
Back to Jefferson
Mississippi
Put flowers on her mother's grave
Still tasting
the bananas
Hearing herself saying
"Hadn't you ruther"
Still hearing Jewel
Cursing softly
"******* you, ******* you"
"You sweet sonofabitch"
Still seeing the mules
Swollen
Floating
Bellies up
Past Cash and the coffin
Leg broken
In that biblical spring flood

I find cannibalism intriguing
2. Bee stings
3. I haven't heard that speech that every boy needs
           to hear to be a man

4. The love that bottlenecks in your throat when someone dies
5. I have to be heavily medicated
                to enjoy my life
       and it feels like cheating

6. A tube of toothpaste, all squeezed out
7. Raising a second generation in my hometown
                It's this place
         That keeps me down

8. Jack the Ripper shows
               when I'm home alone
9. I've read every Sherlock Holmes
           and I am jones-
       ing for another
                   story to make me think

10. Same God, different names
11. Is language to blame
                  for misunderstandings
           or is it just human failings
Faith is a frail
       old woman
              feeding her 1,000 cats
     1,000 separate bowls of milk

12. The class of 2009
13. When I drive home at night
            I pretend to be someone else
       singing along with the radio

14. Ghosts of friends that walk right through you
15. Maybe the past never really happened?
     Maybe I was someone else back then?
16. Men
            Who leave me and fly off to
             Never never land
      Boys, not men
            Who don't want to grow up yet
            and probably never will

17. Ladybugs

White fang piercing soft muzzle, clumsy paws fumble unsuccessfully.

The nation's midsection bloats like a Mississippi fish in the sun.

I saw you on TV
specifically
your ***
and I just wanted to say
NICE HUSTLE