joan dear

If I were Joan Didion,

I would construct

rectangular thoughts

of substance and story.

I would smooth over my eyes

large black sunglasses

type obstinately at prose

tidily fit five feet tall

between hard covers.

Bravely, I would create

the heat and draft of sorrow

and macrobiotic birthings

in nouns, verbs, commas,

periods.

I would disappear beneath

the skin of strangers

tape lives like collagework

in straight and long lines.

Sure I'd swing my arm up,

but I would never slouch.

If I were Joan Didion

I'd be a paragraph

blink blankly at the thrown

together notion of the stanza

skirt the issue altogether

return to my following chapter.