Californ-I-A

"you gotta see the west coast,"
she said. her acrylic nails were
red and the color slunk into the
whites of her eyes. "there just
ain't nothing like the blue sky
in california." a cough hacked
from the cracks in her chapped
red-lined lips. "you gotta see
those people. they got these bright
white teeth and blue convertibles."
"something about it," she said.
"god bless america, you know?"

telephone 6 and 6.5

i can only handle one friend who was
just broken up with (over the phone)
at a time. voice mail: "joe and i had
another fight and i'm just calling to
talk." in person, the cell phone in
the grass, lying flat on our backs
in the park: "bryan said he didn't want
to be with me." i wait for my phone
to beep, telling me ian returned my
text message, which i told myself i
wasn't going to send, but did anyway.
i can't call her back; i can't make her
feel better in the grass (and the mos-
quitos are coming out); he doesn't text
me back.

let's only talk in person from now
on, because it's too hard not to see
your face and i already forgot how you
smile. i don't know you well enough
to be comfortable text messaging you
when i want to know how you're doing
and be able to see it come from your voice
without the static on the line and the
roommate in the other room with the tv
on, but i don't want to have the 'where
is this going?' conversation, because
i'm trying really hard to see if this
new thing could work, but you live too
far away for me to be okay with not
hearing from you until i see you on
the weekend and we aren't clear with
anything. let's just talk in person (and
have the 'where is this going?' con-
versation).

real world

today
the first tuesday of the month at 7 pm
i will cover
for the hearthstone town and country,
"serving the upper perkiomen valley for 108 years"
the bally borough council meeting
"we like to keep the meetings short and simple," said brenda,
council secretary, who wore a leapord print shirt
and looked bored the whole meeting

with four pages of notes and quotes
an hour and a half of handicapped parking and
rogue ballpark baseball debacles
i'll write the article tonight
300 words for $30
before the 9 am deadline tomorrow morning
like a real journalist
although they'll probably cut my lead
"the borough of bally council is knee-deep in sludge"

why aren't there internships
that pay
for poetry?

Found Poem in Boehm

There is a girl crying in the hallway.
"Don't even worry about it, Katie,
He's a fucking asshole,"
The other says, standing at arms-length away.
Katie cries, the water fountain between them.

Note: What do you think about the punctuation in this? Too rigid, or does it ground it?