on not living up to expectations
		-------------------------------------------------------------

		upon hearing the news i wanted out of the state so badly
		a foul taste flared in my mouth and my stomach went south
		despite the silvering-goldening play of the long-haired light
		bathing the trancing drive going east on the prairie at five

		a promising life had hugely derailed into simple travail
		an exciting can-do will-do had irrevocably slipped away

		thinking of the broken glass lining the reservation roads.

		in the no-way-out treed little towns and the not-so-little
		trading one future for another -- one dourly lacking room
		the lofty the independent -- for the bound closer to home

		a matrix replicated manyfold -- "kids make mistakes"
		never ever to be that sporting page center-fold
		trade-schooling and tooling in a distant dusty town
		expectations now folded like a tourist-sold painted tipi
		those (which one?) college quad dreams thoroughly ditched
		familiar highways ahead instead of the mysterious cities

		from now on -- a perennial lent.
		wishing you were here for the hearing for the touching
		you are only slightly
		paradise-misspent.

		i too am you and i am sad and so are we all -- signed, me.


			Marek Lugowski
			19 July 1999
			Chicago, Illinois