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.