The Autobiography
by Bob Craig


Under all
That open
Buttermilk
Sky,

Tooling carelessly
Down an
Open road:

What a peripateetic existence.

Dad,
Knocking around
For automotive
Parts
To support
The family.

Mom,
Joking, singing,
And dancing
The way to
A Brock
Candy Co.
Outlet.
Her beauty-
Parlors askance.

We,
Me and my
Sister,
Joked, sang,
And danced
To avoid the
Handscrabble
Life of
Nickel-and-
Dime saving
And making-
Do.

The quintessential
American tale
Of every
Midwestern kid:

From Illinois
Hick

To Chicago
Poet

To university
Servitude.

Urbanity lacking:

A romantic
Longing that
Haunts.

Nothing sexual.

An agrarian
Landscape,

A prelapsarian
Existence,

Never feeling
Fully at home.

An idealized
Vision
Of life

Receding
In the rear-View
Mirror.






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