In high school, I was in the band.
I took art. I was a reader. I had friends.
I fished with Don Riley and my brother Bill.
I belonged to the Boy Scouts of America.
I played tennis. I swam. I body-surfed.
I sold lobster tails for 25¢ apiece for gas money.
I went to Norton Gallery in West Palm Beach
on a Cushman motor scooter. Admission free.
For the people of Palm Beach County.
Henri Rousseau was one of the founders of
the avant-garde. He couldn't draw for shit.
He was a hopeless amateur. He just wanted to be
an artist. Le Douanier. The customs-inspector.
Childlike. A dreamer. The lion and the gypsy.
Samuel Beckett knew where to get the best oysters.
In Paris. Where Sugar Ray Robinson ate.
The literati took him up.
I thought I'd be
a writer.