They Were Being Assholes

I have been jealous, unkind, mean.
It is easy to be an asshole
When you are surrounded
by human assholes.


Is it possible that this is what God hath wrought?


Is it likely that if the dance floor were suddenly lit
and those boys – grinding to Cincinnati-born rapper Dr. Dre -
their hands stuffed so far up the stiff prom fabric of women they
might be asked to go and might fall into the great depression
and leave the contiguous 48 states for good.


But this is what happened after the dreams and the prom.

The Man in the Elevator Got Fired

She said it was my fault
I need to be alone right now
which is as unfair as
most bosses or games of chance.

I live in a poem entitled
"Poem of the 48 States"
by a Cincinnati-born poet
who couldn't wait to get away.

The girls were naked in Kansas
in a boy's guiltless wet dream.
But what were the girls in

their own dreams doing and what were
the boys doing before taking them
to the high school prom?