KEROUAC

I am on that road again
the one that was sure
he was wrong
that he was fake crazy and
masculine magic
and everything that is
anathema to a woman
like me
So, I buy the book at Strand
in a worldy questioning way
it was on the pile
under the sign
classics it said
and I was ready to
throw down the gauntlet
narrow the writer
into the stuff that
is easily dismissed
until it is not
when the crucial insanity
is not male or female
when it gets all bogged
into a bisexual damn
that the beavers of life
keep building and destroying
when the childy sorrow
of a hundred past thieves
steal the memory
of yourself
and refuse to deceive
what and who you are
why you see that far
and never regret
what you have to forget
to write what you know
in patience and anger
in still and sparkling
in lightness that darkens
he roared through me
and splintered the rickety
he wrote what I hated
he wrote what I loved
the argument endures
the hand fits the glove

9.17.14

New Mexico early 70s