We lived communally with Jack and Karol Neff
in the mountains of
at
He threw pots and I worked as a potters’s helper for
our room and board. Brenda was pregnant with Owen
and Karol had had young John Neff, Jr. We had too many
artists, or artisans, and dependents and not enough
wage-slaves and income-producers. Our arrangement
foundered on the inelastic plank of famine, as Thoreau said
about the Indians selling pots, door to door. Or crafts.
Do you mean us to starve? they said. I don’t give a shit
one way or another. Nobody told you to be an Indian.
That’s your business. Many are called but few are chosen.
You’re an Indian. Get drunk over it.
I got drunk.