A poem written on the back of a checkbook register in a moment of despair.

I got my reading done young.

a mind filled with the corpses of books
I read as a child.
Edward Abbey, who am I now?
Robert Pirsig speeds away, Cosette’s hair streaming behind the bike.
Ayn Rand buildings shimmer in the distance
and I learn of lust and idealism
among mingled dreams of cave bears and architects.

I don’t remember Raskolnikov,
but I still drink lapsang souchong tea
echoes of the summer I read Michener because I’d never seen a book
about a place I’d been before.

All these old ghosts rattle their chains at me tonight.
Who am I now, Edward Abbey?

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