Mileage

So where wasn't I? Montana, for one, and also Maine. But I did all the states that start with 'New,' including the southwestern one, and some one-word states, too. What did I learn on my traipse through the states? Mostly that crazy is given way too much air time. And that air time in general, even the supposedly serious talk shows, are against the serious.

On the upside, Americans love to interact. They gladly enter conversation. They stop your daughter on the street to say they like her hair, or lack of it. They ask you where you got your shirt. They call you darling and honey. Sometimes their zeal gets the better of them, as with the man who woke me up on the flight from Albuquerque to Houston to ask if I'd ever flown United. Well intentioned, I am sure. Even headphones could not stop his heart surgery. On another flight, after a guy across from me complained to the stewardess for the fourth time about the way she phrased something(!), the guy behind me told him politely to shut up.

I have been away. So long! I didn't get a chance until now to mention that I have three poems in the spring issue of Menacing Hedge: 'Snow Globe Shepherd,' 'Village' and 'Crepe Paper Body.' Like the label on the bottle in Alice in Wonderland might as well have said, "Read Me."