“Well,” says the announcer, tapping his papers into

place. “I guess THAT’S ALL, FOLKS.

I guess this is

MY LAST SHOW.

 I guess—”

He presses his finger to a protruding vein on the side

of his well-shaped nose and sniffs—

“this is the end of cotton candy machines,

 ice cream sodas,

 and the goddamn fucking

 State Fair.

 For highs in the lower eighties

and clear skies

expected all this week.

It looks like THAT DOES IT for the saga of me and

this particular one-horse town or one-horse universe, I mean, because I’ve never quite found

the URBAN GRIT

under my surprisingly

size-seven-sized Italian loafers that I was born looking for.”

He takes a violent drink of water.

“I mean, WHAT IS THIS, IOWA?”

He sweeps his arm.

“Is anyone even AWARE—stop it, Roxanne—that some of us wake up every morning unable

to remember the LAST REAL BREAKFAST that was cooked in AMERICA?”

The producer, digging in her nails, fails to drag him from the set.

“Can’t any of you HEAR,” he shrieks, “the last baying howl of the hound dog of your heart’s content? From now on, there’s no more pancakes on the table.

From now on, it’s cold cereal and last night’s BONES.

 From now on, it’s ‘Good night, Hakeem,’

which is the name of my current lover,

by the way,

who meets me in a hotel on Route 6 as if this was

1978 and surprises me with warm crullers and even warmer kisses after I have had—”

he stares into the camera—

“what you might call an

unfortunate day.”

His shoulders heave.

“I would like to participate in real life,” he says.

The producer watches, trying not to pull him by the sleeve. 

 “I would like to walk,

shoulders back,

through the soft mists of spring and smell

the resilient push

of new sprouts emerging from the soil.

I would like to sink my teeth into the morning

like a peach.

 Do not think for one second that I would

NOT LIKE to drive out on Route 6 and hold Hakeem’s face

 in my hands, his cheeks aflame, and say:

‘Your love has disturbed those hibernating

creatures in my head who

once played music every minute

of my waking hour.’

Do not THINK, Roxanne, that I would

NOT LIKE that.

But alas!

ALAS, FINE CITIZENS OF NO NAME, NORTH DAKOTA.

We cannot bite into life as a boy (or a girl) from the 1950s would

bite into a four-cent Hershey bar.

No, not today.

Instead we must hang our heads like mournful horses,

put those blinders on, and GRIEVE

for the Dow Fucking Jones Industrial Average which has taken.

 A turn.

For the worse.”