I remember reading Trout Fishing in America for the first time. I was doing a lot of hiking at the time and really felt like I was getting somewhere. Inspired, I walked to a small fishing hole. I used to hang out there as a boy, but I had never fished there. I used to try to get girls to jump off the rocks naked, which they never did. Anyway, I hiked to the bend in the river shortly after reading Brautigan for the first time. I said, “Fuck you,” quietly to the water and walked home thinking about how I would create my own Kool-Aid reality. And I never stopped.
I dedicate these poems to all of the girls who wouldn’t jump in the river, especially the one I saw buying cover-up at our local pharmacy last week.
“15%”
She tries to get things out of men
that she can’t because she’s not
15% prettier.
“Mating Saliva”
A girl in a green mini-
skirt, not very pretty, walks
down the street.
A businessman stops, turns
to stare at her ass
that looks like a moldy
refrigerator.
There are now 200,000,000 people
in America.