I can't remember the name of the girl in high school who tried
to convince us to smoke by saying "It's just like inhaling paper."
After school, we'd walk to Session Road and try to get into Gingerbread
Folkhouse, where college kids drank beer and passed around rolling papers.
A group would sit around in their denim bell-bottoms, strumming
guitars, puffing smoke rings, writing editorials for the newspaper.
We were all young and green, naive to the world. Some pretended
to turn up their noses at fashion magazines with glossy paper.
Apparently one could not be trusted to be loyal to the cause if one
harbored bourgeois aspirations: heavy stock stationery paper,
bread and cheese; art, movies, poetry that cared about the strength
and beauty of language besides the violence we read about in the papers.
These days, no one is spared, no one set apart from the cruelties of human
hate. I try to keep my heart open despite heartrending news in the papers.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
